Mini Sunset Wild Plants Series with Watercolors

1. Welcome to the Class: Sunsets and sunrises are one of the most beautiful phenomenon in this world and they also create the most spectacular backgrounds when it comes to watercolor paintings. Also I get to use my yellow paints, which is my favorite color in this world. Hello everyone. I'm Gittu, I'm an artist and illustrator based at the United Kingdom. You can find all my art, paintings, and process videos in Instagram as colorful mystique. We will be starting our class by learning the basic watercolor techniques to create gorgeous vibrant sunset backgrounds, such as [inaudible] layering, blending, etc. After that, we will move on to learn different wild plants silhouettes that we can add to our backgrounds to make the best sunset scenes we can imagine. We will be creating six mini sunset paintings on a single sheet by adding these wild plants to our sunset backgrounds. This class will teach you different methods to create skies and clouds, and even add the DSLR effect to your paintings. At the end of this class, you will emerge with the series of beautiful paintings that you can cherish forever Without any further ado, let's jump straight into the class. 2. Art Supplies - Things You Will Need: Let us discuss all the art supplies that we will need for this class. In this class, I'll be using this tetrapods paper. This is 440 GSM, rough 100% cotton paper. As you can see, it's really thick. I would really recommend 100% cotton paper for this class. Then also, you will need a board where you can fix the paper onto, this is a canvas panel that I'm using, so the backside of it, I will be fixing my paper onto it. We will need a board rather than the surface or a table because there is a technique that we would have to lift the paper. You can also use a different type of 100% cotton paper that you have with you. For example, this is Arches 100% cotton paper and it is 300 GSM cold press paper. Over time with experience, I have found that watercolor techniques are best achieved on 100% cotton paper. I would suggest that you try this exercise and the glass projects on 100% cotton paper, such as from our cheese or tetrapod. But don't be worried if you do not have it. You can also attempt it with different watercolor paper. After all, it's all about painting and learning the techniques that matters. We will also need masking tape to tape our paper onto the board that we're using. I will be using two different types of masking tape here. One which is very thin for separating the paintings and the larger one for the borders. Next, watercolor palette to mix your paint and watercolor paints, of course. Each of the colors that I'm using, I will be discussing them in a different lesson. Don't worry if you don't have the exact same watercolors from the same brand, you can use whatever brand that you have, only use the same colors to achieve the best results. Watercolor brushes. These are the two main brushes that we will be using for this class. The first one is a size 4 brush from silver black velvet series. The second one is a 3/0 brush from brushstroke. Apart from that, we will also need a large brush. I will be using this size 12 brush a pencil to mark the sun, an eraser in case we need to rub it off. Two jars of water. One for taking fresh clear water and fresh paint onto our brushes, and the other for washing our brushes clean, which will eventually make this jar turn into a muddy color like here. This is why we need another fresh clear water. Otherwise, we will be mixing the muddy water with our new paints 3. Watercolor Techniques - Let us learn the Basics: I will now show you the watercolor techniques that we will be learning in this class. The first technique that we're going to learn is wet on wet. The first word refers to the brush, that is the brush that we're using and because we dip it into water, it will be wet and the surface that we paint on is the second word, which here is the paper. I have dipped the brush into the water and I will apply the water onto the paper so that the paper becomes wet. When we apply water to the paper and put wet paint on top of it, it will become wet on wet technique. Now, we will add paint to the wet paper. I'm taking Indian yellow paint and my brush now has wet paint and as soon as I apply the paint onto the paper, it spreads and this is the best thing about this technique. Now, we will apply the paint evenly on the surface that we have applied the water. We have to apply the paint all over the area where we applied the water and after this is done, we will learn how we can apply more layers on top of this with the same wet-on-wet technique. Next, I'm taking Indian gold paint and applying these in small strokes from the side towards the inside. Then as we go towards the bottom, we will apply smaller strokes. You can see that my paints are wet and also the paper is still wet from the paints that I did just before with the Indian yellow so we're just adding more layers on top of it and this is still wet-on-wet technique. Then on top of this, I will add the second layer using Venetian red. You can use any color that you have for this. For this exercise, I'm just going to show you how we can build some basic clouds this is just for the exercise. You can see as I go towards the bottom, I'm making smaller strokes and the paint is spreading. This is wet-on-wet technique and basic layering method. Next, we will learn how we can do wet-on-wet blending. Again, I will apply water onto the whole of the rectangle that I have made here. It is easier to blend the colors when there is water on the paper because it will blend smoothly. Otherwise, we would have to work on a whole different level and faster if we have to blend. Once we have applied the water, I'm taking Indian gold and I'm going to start from the top. We have to make these swift left and right movements. You can see I'm going left, right, left, right within the rectangle that I have made. Usually, we would take the paper down with tape on all the four sides, but since this is a class exercise, I'm just showing you how it's done. You can see as I go towards the bottom, I have less pigment on my brush and I have blended it smoothly at the bottom. After that, we take Venetian red and we start from the bottom and go upwards in the same left and right swift movements that we learned. You can see there that in the middle, it has blend smoothly both the colors, Venetian red and Indian gold. If we want it to be darker, we can apply more paint on top of it and blend it again. The key important point here is that we shouldn't stop midway when we're doing the blending thing we should go either upwards or downwards, but go all the way up to where the point we want the surface to be blended. That is the key important thing because if we stop midway, we might form blooms. It is that simple. 4. Class Exercise - Wild Plants Part I: For the wild plants, these are the two brushes that I will be using. This is a size four silver black velvet brush. You can use a smaller size if you have. But within my silver black velvet collection, this is the smallest that I have. You can see that it has a really nice pointed tip. I use it a lot for detailing works because of its pointed tip. The other one I will be using is this brush roll round Size 3/0. This is also very useful as you can see, because of the pointed tip. I will be showing you all the wild plants techniques with these two brushes. This lesson is about practicing the wild plants before we move into the class projects. This is sepia and this is Venetian red. These are the two colors that we'll be using today for this class exercise, along with burnt umber. This class exercise is very important because we will learn different types of brushstrokes and use the potential of our brushes to the maximum. All these different strokes will help you improve your hand movements and brush control when painting. You will learn how to make thin lines and thicker lines as well. Once we master that, we can move on to the class project. I have picked up sepia paint. The tip of the brush is the key to make thin lines. We load concentrated color onto the tip of the brush. Then using the tip of the brush, we will make the lines. This is how you can hold the brush to get control of the tip area. Then using only the tip, and without pressing too much onto the paper, we will start to draw the lines from the bottom upwards. Using the tip again, we will make smaller branches from the main stem that we made. We will add smaller branches at random places and make sure that we start the branch from the main stem, and not the other way around. Note how I'm picking up paint onto the tip of the brush because that is what we're mostly using. Once the branches are done, we can make these small strokes to get the leaves. It again using the tip and making these small brush strokes. I will show you how it is done on the sheet of paper. Using the tip of the brush, touch the tip and then press a bit and lift off. If this is the line, touch the tip, press and lift off. We have to make sure that it is smaller towards the top, that this tapering towards the top. I'll show you again with this line touching the tip, and then pressing a bit down, and then lift off. That is the brush movement that we have to do. Repeat this and make it thicker at the bottom and thinner as it is going towards the top. This is what we will be doing for all these small branches that we have made. Now we will add the cone-shaped grass leaves onto all the branches that we made. Once we master the brush stroke, it is fairly simple. We could leave some of the branches as it is, and not make any cone-shaped leaves onto it because it would make the wild plants look more real. Next, we will add some leaves on to the wild plant. I will show you how it is done on this thin line. Using the tip again, load up your brush nicely with the paint. Then from the main stem, start using the tip. Then press the brush down as you move. Then lift again. You can see in the middle it's got thickness and towards the outside is thin. Then you can make it bend to a different angle and do the same stroke again to get the leaf. It's pressing down and then lifting slowly so that you get the shape and then doing the same in different direction or different angle. We can add one more towards the left side. You can see. Now, we will move on to the second wild plant that I will show you. I'm going to be using Venetian red for this. Using the tip of the brush again, we will make the thinner lines starting from the bottom and upwards. Then for this, we're going to use the same brush stroke, but rather all towards the right side. This is just to imply that there is wind blowing from the left side to the right, so all the corn leaves are towards the right. I will show you. If this is the branch, then we will make these smaller strokes towards the right side, thicker at the bottom but tapering towards the top. But obviously, we can't leave the left side blank because there'll be some towards the left side, but most of it will be towards the right side. That is what we will do. All of the smaller corn grass towards the right side, and then some towards the left side so that it doesn't seem like a straight line on the left. I would also show you a way where if we do make a mistake, we can correct it. For example, on this line, let's say we start making the corn grass, but then accidentally we forgot that we had to taper it towards the top. But it is all right, we just have to extend the line a bit more upwards and start to taper it at the top again. It is just that this grass will be a bit longer. That's it. But that is how we can correct our own mistakes when we're doing this. For this one, keep adding all the corn grass towards the top and tapering as you move towards the top. That's it. Let's add some grass at the bottom as well. For the grass, we will be using upward motion, that is, from the bottom side of the paper towards the top, like this, with the tip of the brush. When we do these movements, you can see that it is a bit thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top. But rather, if we were to do the same stroke starting from up towards the bottom, we will see that we are unable to achieve thinner part at the top, which is why when we are painting grass, we have to start from the bottom and go upwards, which will give us the thinner top part of the grass exactly as we want it. I'm just going to add a little bit of base here just for fun, and that's it. 5. Class Exercise - Wild Plants Part II: Now we will move on to the third technique. For the third technique, I will be using sepia again, and I have switched to the brush stroke 3/0 round brush. For this, again, using the tip of the brush, we will start to make lines from the bottom towards the top. You might have understood by now that when we're using the tip of the brush we get thinner lines, then we will add branches at random places. Next is the most important part, that is adding the leaves. This is basically simple. It is using the tip of the brush, I'll show you. Use the tip, press down, and lift off. You see. We apply pressure on the brush, touch the tip, then press the whole of the brush downwards, and then lift off so that we get this shape. We can do this in different directions, just like these. That is how the shape of the leaves will be formed. Keep practicing this in different directions. Onto the branches that we made, we will add the leaves in different directions. Some of these can overlap the branches as well because it will not always be towards the left or towards the right. It can be right in front of it as well. This is really a fun exercise because we get to make different shapes using just our brush. I really love making these leaves because it's so much fun to watch the different brush strokes that is in different directions, how they make different kinds of leaves. I'm pretty sure that after this class exercise, you will have a good control over how you lift off your brush. Now, we will move on to the fourth wild plant that I will show you. I have switched back to the size 4 silver black velvet brush, and I have made a thin line using the tip. Now we will start to make the leaf. Using the tip then, press the brush downwards, and make the same stroke, just like we learned in the first wild plants 1. That is the same kind of leaf, but for this one we will be doing it at a different angle than the one on the top. That's it. It's just similar. We're making the leaves in this shape just to depict how the leaf might be twisted, just like in the picture above. This is just an example picture, so you know how it looks. Now, we will add the corn at the top. Using burnt umber, I'm going to make the corn. It is again, thicker at the bottom, and thinner as we go towards the top. This is the first layer using burnt umber, and then on top of it we will add sepia, but only in the middle. This one is to depict the sun rays from behind. All the leaves that are on the outside part will be lighter, which is why we add the burnt umber, but on the inside it will be darker to depict thickness. Now, for the fifth one, again, using the tip of the brush, we will make smaller lines. Always remember, it should be from the bottom towards the top. This one is fairly simple. At the top, we will add small spikes protruding outside of the stem in the shape of a cigar. It is only at the top having the cigar-shaped stem spike towards the outside. This type of bush is known as bulrush. It is similar to the one that you see above. Keep adding the cigar-shaped heads onto the top of the thinner lines that we made. As I said, this one is quite easy to do. That is all. For the next one, we will have a single stem, and this is the close-up view of a wild fern. From the main stem, we will have branches towards the left side. Note I'm using the tip of the brush, and making these strokes. Then using Indian gold, I'm going to add smaller leaves, again, thicker at the bottom, and they bring thin as I go towards the top. Make the strokes outwards from the branch, that is, from the inside towards the outside as you can see, and as I said, it will be thicker at the bottom, and thinner at the top. I will show you how this is done. It is basically using the tip of the brush, and then pressing, and lifting off, but doing it in a faster manner. We don't have to be carefully doing this as to get the shape exactly right, it's just doing it randomly using the tip and lifting off. We will add Indian gold to all the branches that we made. Now, we will repeat the process with sepia. Adding sepia onto the top of the Indian gold so that some parts of the Indian gold will be seen through underneath. This will act like sunlight is falling on some of the parts of the fern, which is why it appears lighter. The Indian gold is what will make the sunlight appear through our fern, and the darker sepia is where the sunlight is not falling, and we're clearly seeing the silhouette of the fern. It is the same stroke, just like we applied for the Indian gold, but slightly make the separate ones smaller so that the Indian gold is visible underneath it. After that, we will make some smaller branches on the main stem so that it doesn't look so thin. Now the last wild plant that I will show you is similar to the third one that we did, but instead of using the brush stroke size 3/0 brush, I will be using my silver black velvet brush size 4, and I'm also using Venetian red here. Using the tip again first, we will draw the lines from the bottom. After that, it is the leaves. Remember we did the leaves with the brush stroke brush, but this time we will do it with the silver black velvet brush. You can see that the leaves shapes are exactly the same but slightly bigger because this is a size 4 brush. You can see and compare both the leaves. See the size of the leaves. The top one is smaller, and the bottom one is slightly larger. The process is fairly the same. Using the tip of the brush, we press down the whole of the brush, and then lift off, and we get these leaves. We will do this in different directions, and that is all. I hope that this class exercise really helps you with your brush strokes, and how you can control the use of your brushes, and different hand movements. Once you master this, we can move on to the class projects, and you can make gorgeous sunsets with these wild plants as silhouettes inside them. 6. Let Us Have a Look at All the Wild Plants: Here's all the different types of wild plants that we learned in the class exercise. All of these would look great when painted on a sunset or sunrise background. This one over here even has sunlight reflected part underneath and also the different shapes because of two different brushes here. In our class project, we will be doing something similar. This is a set of mini paintings that I made. As you can see, this one is this silhouette at the first one. The second one is basically this shape, but pointing upwards, that is without the wind effect. The third one is this one, and the larger one is this one. This one in the middle is exactly same method as this one, that is this one over here. I just have added more leaves and the current dense leaves at the bottom part over here. Lastly, this one is again similar to this one. But just to add, I have extended this part towards the bottom here. But you can see how these wildflowers are so adorable when we add it to a sunset background. This is what is going to be our class project for today. 7. Class Project - Prepping the paper and Paints: Let us begin our class project. In this class, I will be using these two different types of tapes. One of them is slightly thinner and it's around 0.9 cm and this one is 1.8 cm thicker. The larger one I will be using for taping down my paper onto the board on all the four sides. It is better to take them down onto a board or any larger cardboard that you may have because there is one technique where we'll have to lift the paper so that there is a bit of gravity effect. I have used the backside of a Canvas panel here. Now, we will have to divide the paper into six different sections. We will measure and mark the six different sections. Once you have done that, we will tape using the smaller tape. But don't worry if you don't have a smaller size tape, you can just use the same one. The only thing is that you will have a thicker space between the different squares, that's all, but I hope that's all right. Once we have finished taping down the paper, let's look at these colors. These are the colors that we will be using. First is Indian yellow, Indian gold. These are from White Nights, then burnt umber, sepia, and finally, [inaudible] These are the five colors that we will be using for this class project. Before we start painting, prepping our paints is really important, which is why we have to get all the colors ready, whichever colors we're going to use in our painting. I'm squeezing out paint onto my ceramic palette over here. As you can see, my paints are now ready. 8. Class Project - Painting the Background Part I: Let us now start with the background for the first mini painting. We will be using wet on wet technique so let us apply water first onto the surface of the paper. Once we have finished applying the water all over the surface, we will start applying paint. Here, I'm using Indian yellow. Apply Indian yellow all over the surface of the paper where we have applied the water. Here, it is easier to apply and we do not have to be careful about the edges because we have taped it. After applying the first layer, then we will move on to the second layer, that is applying Indian gold. Taking a bit of Indian gold, we will apply it on the left side and towards the inside. We will leave a gap in the center. This is where the sun is going to be. Keep making these strokes with your brushes. Remember that we're still working with the wet on wet technique, so we have to work faster before the water dries on the paper. This is why always 100% cotton paper is the most important when it comes to watercolor painting. Once we have finished with the Indian gold, we will go with the next layer again, which is burnt umber. I'm going to apply burnt umber on the top in the form of small clouds. This is again wet on wet technique. My paper is still wet. This is because I'm using 100% cotton paper. Make smaller clouds at the bottom. After that, we will move on to the next color, which is sepia. Applying on top of the already existing clouds that we painted. It is always better to work from the lighter color to the darker color because we cannot make it lighter after we have made it darker, which is why first we start with the Indian yellow, then Indian gold after that, burnt umber, then sepia. In this way, we will be adding more and more layers on the top to give it the exact color that we need. Using burnt umber, we will add more shapes to the clouds. There is no specific rule or specific way as to how we should make the clouds. They're just random and I'm making different shapes as in where the brush takes me. This is all just random exactly as you want it. But take note of the large chunk of Indian yellow that I have kept as it is, this is where the lightest portion of our painting will be, where the sun goes. Then at the bottom, we will add more of a darker tone, that is sepia, so keep adding more darker and darker tones towards the bottom side. Work on adding more layers as you please, using Indian gold, burnt amber, and sepia. As you can see here, I'm adding more of Indian gold paint to areas where I feel it is very less. Now we will move on to the second one, while the first one dries. Even start by applying water all over the surface of the second square area. Once we have done that, I'm going to start with Indian gold. This one is going to be a combination of Indian gold and Venetian red. First, I'm applying Indian gold. It is very important to apply water first because that way our paint will spread and blend together nicely. As you can see, I'm making the swift left and right movement so that I get a very nice texture on the surface of my paper. The second color that we will add onto this one is Venetian red. While the paper is still wet, we will add Venetian red onto the top. Don't worry if you don't have Venetian red, you can use any other red. But if you want a similar color, you can mix a very lighter tone of brown with red, and it will give a darker shade, just like Venetian red. Apply Venetian red on the top of the Indian gold in the form of smaller clouds. And at the bottom part I'm applying the whole of the area, but starting with lighter tones first, and then gradually you can increase the color if we want. Now, as you can see, I'm moving towards the darker tones. That is taking more darker tone of Venetian red and applying it on top. That is all for the second background. Now, we will move on to the third one. Again, this is going to be using the wet on wet technique. Wet on wet technique is always the best for painting backgrounds. So I'm applying water all over the surface of the third square now. After that, starting with Indian yellow, I'm applying starting from the bottom and working towards the top as you can see. Work your way upwards from the bottom using Indian yellow. Then from the top, we will start adding Indian gold and blend it nicely with the Indian yellow. Starting from the top now I'm painting with Indian gold. This is the wet on wet blending that we did in class exercise. Remember we have to make this swift left and right movements and not to stop midway or anything so that we do not form any blooms. Just keep blending together nicely the Indian yellow and the Indian gold. Now at the bottom part, on top of the Indian yellow area, we will add Indian gold on the top and work on adding more layers on the top. Remember that this is all wet on wet technique. We're building the bottom part of our picture. Then next, we will take some Venetian red and add it on top of the Indian yellow. But as you can see, I'm taking a very lighter tone so that it will mix with the Indian yellow at the bottom and blend together to give a very lighter orange shade. After that, we can work on adding more layers on the top. Next, we will add the clouds with burnt umber. Add the clouds on top of the Indian gold area at the top and form these shapes just like clouds. It can be in any random manner. Remember, we're just trying to create different backgrounds for our silhouette of the wild plants so it can be in any random way that you prefer. Once this has finished, we will move on to the next video where we'll paint the other three backgrounds. 9. Class Project - Painting the Background Part II: Moving on to the fourth background, we will start with applying water again all over the surface of the paper. Then starting with Indian yellow, we will add it on to the paper. This background starts with Indian yellow again so on the whole of the paper where we have applied the water, we will apply Indian yellow first. Next, we will add Indian yellow on the top. You might have understood by now that Indian yellow, Indian gold, Venetian red, burnt umber and sepia, these five colors are the most important when painting sunsets. You can also use different shades of brown or different shades of yellow for this. For these mini paintings series of sunsets, these are the five colors that I prefer mostly. The key important thing is that we have to apply it in different methods. That is, sometimes the clouds are using Venetian red, sometimes the clouds are using Indian yellow, burnt umber, and sepia. All we have to do is mix and match these different colors to make different vibrant backgrounds, that's all. I'm going to leave this space around here lighter because that's where my sun is going to be in this painting. Adding burnt umber to the top. First, I started with Indian yellow then Indian gold, and then moved on to adding burnt umber on the top. Here at the base part, I'm going to make it a bit more darker. This is where my wild plants will go. We will add more color to the bottom that is using sepia, so adding more darker brown to the bottom part. Keep adding more sepia to the bottom part and towards the middle there, I'm blending both sepia and burnt umber together because I want this area to be lighter. Now, we will move on to the fifth one, starting by applying the water again to the whole of my paper. Remember that we have to apply the water evenly. Then here I'm starting with Indian yellow again. On this one, I'm going to do a semi-circular shape. First I started with Indian yellow, and then towards the top of it, I'm mixing Indian gold again in the shape of a semi-circle. This is exactly the same blending that we learned, but instead of going from the left or right in the same swift motion rather than that, we're going to do a semi-circular blending that's it. Then to the top, I'm going to be adding Venetian red. Then using Venetian red, we will fill the rest of the semi-circular part. Remember that we have to blend this in the form of a semicircle that's all. Darker tones at the top and as you reach towards the Indian gold all we have to be careful, is that you blend in the form of a semi-circle. As you can see, my brush stroke is moving from the left to the right and from the right to the left but in a semicircular motion. This background is really simple and all there is is to make the semi-circular blending of the three colors that is Indian yellow, Indian gold, and Venetian red. Now finally, moving on to the sixth and last background of our class project, we start with applying water and then using Indian gold first. We will apply the whole of the paper with Indian gold. After that, we will start with burnt umber. Using burnt umber, we will add these small texture towards the bottom side of the Indian gold that we applied. At the top, we will take burnt umber and apply it at the top side but we will let it flow down. In order to make it flow down, we will slightly tilt the board where we have taped the paper. This is why I said it is easier to tape it onto a board rather than on to our table or surface. If you had taped it onto a cardboard or a board, it's easier to give it this angle and tilt it so that due to gravity, the water color paint will flow down and blend together nicely. I would like to remind you again that this is wet on wet technique and the paper stays wet for a longer duration of time only because the paper is 100% cotton paper. When you're using water colors, we have to make sure that our paper is the best and is 100% cotton paper. Always try to invest in water color paper rather than brushes or paints. Now, that is all of our six backgrounds done. 10. Class Project - Painting the Sun: In this lesson, we will focus on adding sun to our backgrounds. This is a circular ruler that I have. As you can see, it is circular in shape and has these different circles with different measurements. This is ideal when we have to draw the suns and all these squares. Here, I'm going to be using this circle here to add a circle on to the background. You can see I've made a circle on the space that I had left behind for the sun. Similarly, we will add a circle to all our paintings. This will be where the sun will be. Focus on drawing the circle on all the areas where we left it lighter. Now, to paint few of these suns, I will be using this gouache paint. This is white gouache paint from Winsor & Newton. This is what I use mostly when I have to paint on top of watercolors with white. I'm just going to squeeze out a bit of the white paint onto this. Don't worry if you don't have white gouache paint. You can also use white watercolors. But just remember that you have to apply a very concentrated version for the color to become visible on top of the yellow that we have applied. This process is fairly simple. All we have to do is paint in these circles that we have drawn with white gouache or white watercolors. Now, for this next one, we will add a red sun. We will apply venetian red on the circle that we drew. Now, onto the third one, we will apply with whitewash again. As I said, this part of the painting process is really easy. I really forgot to say one thing. Adding the suns on to our painting, this has to be done once the background layer has completely dried. Otherwise, our white paint will mix together with the yellows and we will not be able to paint the sun. For the fifth one, again, we will use venetian red for the sun. You might have understood by now, wherever I have used venetian red as a dominant background, I am using red color to make the sun. For the others, I'm using white gouache paint. Now, we can move on to the next lesson where we will start painting the silhouettes of the wild plants onto our backgrounds. 11. Class Project - Wild Plants Silhouette 1: We have to wait for the sun to dry before we can start painting, because we do not want it to spread out if we accidentally paint on top of it. We will start with the first wildflower that we learned during the techniques lesson. Remember we have to use the tip of the brush for making the lines, holding it in this direction. Using the tip will make the straight lines. This is exactly as we learned in the techniques lesson. Remember that the space next to the sun and also over the sun, we will not be painting with Sepia, but we have to give a lighter tone to it. For painting the branches, the leaves and the stem, remember the class exercise that we did, and it is exactly similar to it. Sit back and enjoy the painting process. As you can see, I have included the full painting process over here so you can sit back and paint along with me. Adding these wildflowers onto the backgrounds that we just made. Because the painting process is exactly similar to what we have learned in the class exercise and the techniques lesson. I have increased the speed of the video very slightly. Adding the second wild plant now. One thing we have to remember, is that the dark part of the stem is what should be thinner. In case we make thicker lines at the top, we have to ensure that any line towards the bottom part should be thicker than that, we should add more thickness to the bottom part. Keep adding these small cone-shaped wild plants and they can all overlap each other. Don't try to make it separate, that would not make it look real. In reality, there would be overlapping, intermixed together. That is what we will do here. Now the leaf, so remember using the tip, then press down the whole of the brush, lift off, and then towards a different angle. I'm going to add another wild plant towards the right side over here. Keep adding as many branches and as many ground-shaped leaves as you want. There is no specific rule for this. Just follow according to your wish. Now, we will add on top of the sun, because the sun is white, it would be reflecting some part of the leaves. We would have to add a lighter tone to it, which is why we will not be using Sepia, but rather we will use burnt umber so that it is a lighter brown shade on top of the sunny areas, and also towards the lighter areas of the picture. Use light brown for the lighter leaves and branches. That's it. 12. Class Project - Wild Plants Silhouette 2: Now let us move on to the second silhouette. First I will add a base with sepia, so make these small tiny hills at the bottom with sepia. It can also represent the ground, so rather than making it flat try to add bits of texture here and there and that's it. Small tiny hills. Once we finish with the ground then we will move on to adding the thin lines with the tip of the brush. So this is the second exercise technique that we learned in the class exercise. We will make thinner lines starting from the bottom and move towards the top, and they should be of various heights. Once this is done we will start to add the wind blown fern leaves onto our thinner lines that we drew. So remember this is all facing towards the right side because it appears as if wind is flowing from the left side, and making it move towards the right side. But remember that we have to add a tiny little bit towards the left side so that it doesn't appear straight. Also be careful that these fern leaves they have to be thicker at the bottom part and it has to taper down and go thinner towards the top. Repeat this procedure for all the stem that we have made. Now because we don't want to leave the ground part to be empty let us add some grass at the bottom. Remember how I showed you in the class exercise where we have to start from the bottom and move our brush towards the top. These are upward strokes where we will paint the grass. In this way we will be getting thinner lines at the top and thicker at the bottom. You can add some more of the fern if you feel that it looks empty. Isn't it simple guys? Once we're done adding and that's it. 13. Class Project - Wild Plants Silhouette 3: Let us now move on to the third one, which has now completely dried and this is the one we will be using the brushstroke brush, the size 3/0. Starting with sepia at the bottom part, I'm going to add tiny hills at the bottom again, or the ground. For this, I'm going to make it slightly angled towards the left side. That is more at the left side and lesser on the right side, and remember for all of these silhouettes we're using sepia color, concentrated dark sepia so that we get it almost similar to black. Then we will start adding the lines with the tip of the brush. Professional artists do not usually use black in their paintings and they try to use darker tones of different colors such as Payne's gray or sepia or brown shades, to get a darker version of black, or they usually mix black using different colors. It also gives the painting an attractiveness and a real look rather than using black. This is the main reason why I'm using sepia. You can use a darker shade of brown if you don't have sepia. Once we have finished adding all the stems, we will start to add the leaves. Again, this is exactly as we learned in the class exercise all we have to do is using the tip of the brush, then press the whole of the brush down and lift off. That is what gives the shape of the leaves. This is one of my favorite brush strokes. I love making these leaves with different brushes that I own and remember that we have to make these leaves in different directions. They all should not be facing the same direction. Some of them can be towards the top, some downwards, some towards the left and right. Just make them randomly to all the different directions and that is what makes them look real. Also remember, all of the leaves will not be from the main stem. Using the tip of the brush, we have to draw some branches outwards and then the leaves at the top of the branches. You can see I'm drawing a branch now. Then at the top, I drew a leaf. Then I've added more leaves to that branch and do some of the branches, I'm adding multiple leaves. A mixture of all these techniques that is, leaves on the main stem adding more branches and then multiple leaves on the same branch. All of these, when mixed together, is what makes it look aesthetic and real. Now for the area over the sun, we have to use a lighter shade, which is why I'm taking Indian yellow and as you can see, I'm painting over the white gouache that I applied with Indian yellow. This is because the sunlight is reflected of that leaf and it appears more lighter than the rest of them. Also to depict some of the leaves that may appear as if facing the other direction, that is towards the paper, we can draw it with using this Indian gold and once we have finished making all of these leaves, the third silhouette sunset painting is done. 14. Class Project - Wild Plants Silhouette 4: Moving on to the fourth silhouette. Now, this is going to be a bit tricky and different. I want to add the DSLR effect onto this painting, which will have something in the background that is blurred. So for that, first we will apply water over the existing paint that we already have, but careful to avoid the sun so that the white does not blend in. Then using burnt umber, I will add some leaves in the background. You can see that it spreads a bit but it appears as if it is blurred. When it dries, we will get the DSLR effect. Now my paper has completely dried and you can see that the layer that we just added seems blurred in the background. Then on top of that using sepia, I'm making the silhouette. I have made the stem first and then adding the leaves in the different direction. Keep adding the different leaves, smaller and some bigger ones. Now for this leaf, you can see I have made a slightly thinner in the middle because it will appear as if it has been twisted. Remember the picture I showed during the class exercise, that is how this leaf was. We will add more silhouette leaves onto the painting. Now, using burnt umber, we'll start adding the corn at the top for the main stem. Remember, it has to taper towards the top and thicker at the bottom. We will add one more towards the right side and for this, I'm going to make the corn a bit longer. Then lastly, on top of the burnt umber, we will add zapier to give it the effect of sunlight. A dusty burnt umber will act as the sun rays being reflected off the side and towards the center we will have the denser areas, which is why we are painting with zapier 15. Class Project - Wild Plants Silhouette 5: Let us now move on to the fifth one. Using sepia again, I'm going to draw thinner lines. This is the bull rush plan that I showed you where we will have cigar-shaped heads at the top. First of all, we will start adding these thinner lines which will be the stem of the plant. We will have to add them in different heights. For this painting remember, it is okay to overlap on top of the sun area because the sun here is red in color and not white so it's not reflecting much of the light. I think I will add a base to this painting because somehow it appears as if the grass and ferns are growing out of nowhere, so I'm just adding sepia at the bottom to give a ground to the painting. I'm going to add more grass and twigs at the bottom. Now I'm going to add the cigar-shaped heads to the branches or the stems. These are in the form of shape of a cigarette or a cylinder. But on 2D paper, it appears a bit rectangular. That's what we're doing here. Remember the class exercise where we learned how to paint this. We will be adding the cigar-shaped heads to most of the stems. Adding details onto a painting is one of the most time-consuming ones, but yet so satisfying. Also, remember the stem can be in different directions. Here there is no effect of the wind so they all do not have to be in one direction. Just try to make it crossing each other so that they look real. You can also add small leaves to some of them. Once you're satisfied with the way your wild plants are, you can move on to the next one. 16. Class Project Wild Plants Silhouette 6: Moving on to the final one, I'm using my silver black velvet size four brush and drawing the main line. This is one where there was a single wild plan fun or leaf, and which had the sunlight effect on all the branches of leaves. Using sepia, we will add all the branches or all the stem of the leaves towards the left side. This is again as if there is a wind effect where all the leaves are blowing towards the left side. Now, this is exactly like A1, the class exercise. As you can see, I have already applied Indian gold onto the leaves, just like we did in the class exercise. Actually what happened right here is that I forgot to click the record button, and I only realized after reaching here that it was not recording but luckily, and thankfully, we have a class exercise which focuses on exactly how this is done and how the strokes are, so we don't have to worry about it. If you have followed the class exercise, this will be fairly easy for you to follow. Using Indian gold I'm adding the fund leaves in these strokes. For learning these strokes, you can refer to the class exercise where I have clearly explained how we will be doing this. Also observe where I have made the ones at the bottom and ones at the top darker and the ones in the middle lighter. This is because of the effect of the sun where it will be more lighter closer to the area where the sun is. Now on top of the Indian gold, we will apply sepia. We will be doing the same strokes again, but this time it will be a bit smaller than the ones that we applied using Indian gold. This will make it appear as if the Indian gold part is being seen from underneath disappear, so this is what gives it the sunlight reflected surface. That is the sunlight effect so it seems as if for some of the leaves the sunlight is being reflected, that is why we applied Indian gold at first. For this silhouette all we have to do is first apply Indian gold and beamed all the leaves, then on top of it, we will be using sepia. Once you're finished with this, we can add small tiny branches towards the right side so that it doesn't look empty on the right side. As you can see, I'm adding small, tiny branches towards the right side because I do not want it to be empty. Once you're satisfied with what you have done the final painting is done. 17. Final Thoughts and Thank You: Now this is the most exciting part of the painting, that this peeling off the tape. We will now peel off each of the tapes, and we can see how beautiful our painting has turned out. We always have to remember that we have to peel off the tape away from the painting, but it's difficult when we have paintings both on the left and the right side. We might accidentally tear the paper as you can see right now, some part of the paper is peeling off, so we have to be very careful. But I have a simple trick to show you how you can avoid this as well. When you're peeling off the tape, try to pinch the tape in the middle, that is towards the middle pinch the tape. This way both the sides of the tape will be away from the painting. Do you see, I'm pinching the tape in the middle, bit by bit, and we pull so the part where we have pinched will be facing away from both the paintings. That is the one on the top, and the one on the bottom side. This is how you can remove the tape when we have paintings on both sides. You can see how perfectly I have got the borders because I have been removing the tape away from the paper. I'm doing this very carefully, and slowly and see how the middle part has turned out. Now for the sides, it doesn't matter, all we have to do is take it off facing away from the paper that is towards the outside and that's all. Done. Have a look at our final painting and marvel at the beautiful, gorgeous sunsets silhouettes that we have made using wild plants. Now, I want to show you some of the cute little paintings that I did using the same techniques and methods. These are some Polaroid paintings that I made. If you don't have large paper, you can also make them on these smaller sheets separately instead of a big one. See I also made a card out of it. This is just a paper I bend it in half, and I made the painting on the front side. This one over here is my absolute favorite somehow, because there's yellow and red in it. It makes it very attractive to my eyes. There are a wide variety of uses for these mini paintings. As you can see, I have hung them onto a thread and I have attached them onto my bedroom wall. I have also added tiny lights onto it, so that at night, when I turn on the lights, it makes my paintings look beautiful. This was taken during the day because it was hard to capture in the camera during the night with the lights on but trust me guys, it's really beautiful. Thank you so much for watching my class. I hope that you have enjoyed painting these small sunset paintings. If you do like my class, please leave a review so that people like you can find my class on Skill Share. If you do try these paintings and want to post them on social media, don't forget to tag me. My Instagram handle is colorfulmystique, I would love to share your paintings on my stories. Once again, thank you so much for watching my class.