Transcripts
1. Intro modern mixed media birds: I welcome to modern
Mixed Media birds, where we are going to discover
how to create dynamic, modern bird paintings through the power of layering
watercolor, acrylic, and ink. We're going to start with
loose vibrant backgrounds and move into color blocking, realistic painting,
and doodling. And don't forget about
those finishing touches on the birds that
really make things pop. You're going to learn
how to build depth and contrast and create
art that feels bold, modern and uniquely yours. So whether you're new to mixed
media or just wanting to freshen up your
creative process, this class is designed to inspire you and spark
your creativity. Oh, and by the way, I'm Jules. I'm an artist and nature
lover who is gonna guide you along the way to making
this mixed media art. Grab your supplies, let loose, and let's make something
beautiful together. I can't wait to see
what you guys made.
2. Materials for Class: H. Alright, let's go over the materials
needed for this class. It is so much fun because we
get to use so many things. Let's just start right here. I've got some paint
pens, gold marker, silver marker, and a really thick micron
Hermanent ink pen. I have some brushes. I've got a two and a four round. I've got a quarter inch long flat, and then
I've got, like, a fluffy squirrel hair, number two, just that
holds a lot of water. We'll be using this
for watercolor, and we'll be using
these for the birds. And we're going to use this
for the color blocking. Then we'll need some washy
tape, an eraser, pencil. I've got this little plate because it makes a
beautiful circle. And then I've got
my graphite paper. If you don't have
graphite paper, just grab a regular sheet of paper and a number two pencil, and you'll just color like this all over the
back of the paper. And that can help transfer your image in lieu of
this graphite paper. Alright. And then I've also
got some rags right here. So we've got our images
of the birds printed out. I've got two birds. This
is a tufted tit mouse. They're very common
here in the South. I love them so much with
their little crests. But I've got two printed out
roughly around five to 6 ". This one's four by six. This one's five by five. So just something
that will fit in the middle of your circle
that you have chosen. I'm just going to put
this in my sketchbook. I love doing a two page
spread in my sketchbook, and that's why I might need
these little clips just to hold down the pages. I got these off of
Amazon. Aren't they cute? Okay, now let's
move to the paint. This is a Daniel
Smith neutral tint. We'll use this for the bird. And then I also have some
white watercolor guash. This is a Hlbean
Artis squash, G 630. So this will
reactivate with water. This will reactivate with
water. This is guash. This is watercolor.
Other watercolors, I've chosen five colors. You can choose any colors
you want to that are kind of harmonious or that
might look good together. This is what we're
going to make our watercolor background out of. When we go to color blocking, I've got some guash. So I want something
like acrylic guash, not watercolor guash, but something acrylic
and something flat. Guash will dry with a mat. Background. I also
have some acrylic flat by golden. Okay, what else? I also have some scissors
in case I need it, some water jars
with water in it. Okay, let's do it. I'm excited.
3. Abstract Watercolor Background : Okay, so the first thing
we're gonna do is we're gonna get our watercolors
wet and ready for us. So I have a little spray bottle. And I'm also gonna
get the page wet. You don't have a spray bottle, just get your paint brush wet and drag it
all over the page. We just want the water
to start soaking into the page so that we
don't make harsh lines to begin with with our
watercolor wash. Got my clips here because
I know the pages are going to start to
buckle a little bit. Alright, now that I've
got my pages wet, I can come over here
to my watercolors and start building
these guys out. So I'm just going
to take one color and make some scriggles
along the lines. And because our page is wet, we can see that it's
kind of bleeding out and it's getting this little
ethereal kind of look. I'm gonna take another color and just go around
the edge of that one with some scriggles Wow. Pick up some of
this forest green. These are just arbitrary
colors that I've chosen. I'm going around
now to the areas of the page where I haven't
put any pigment. Okay, I've got some green here, so I want to kind of bring
the eye down this way. I want the pages to be
complimentary to each other. So when we get these
circles in the middle, I want some of the same
colors on each page. I want them to look different. But I also This is now Indigo. But I also want them
to be harmonious. I know I'm not gonna
see the edges, but I like doing them anyway. So I'm just dipping in the
water and getting my page wet, just kind of
spreading the colors around trying to keep
the integrity of, like, say, this yellow that
I put down because I do want it to show through
in our circles. Okay, now I'm gonna get some of this reddish brown color that almost does not
seem like it goes. And I'm just gonna kind of
streak a little bit here and there around and
let it bleed out. Alright. So I'm just kind of approximating see
what colors I've got going on in the middle of these
circles, and I think I like it. So I'm gonna give that a go. I'm gonna let this dry, and then we'll meet back here in the next lesson and make some circles and paint
with some of the squash.
4. Circles & Color Blocking : Mm. Okay, now that we've got our background dry, I'm gonna get my plate out, and I'm going to place the circle in the
middle of my page, and I'm just going to trace
around it with my pencil. Okay, so now I need
to make a choice. I need to decide what color I want to put
around this outside. So. Hmm. Alright, so I've
got my flat paint brush out, and I've got my flat
golden halo green color, and I think this is gonna
look really pretty with this. So let's see what happens.
Now, this kind of paint, I can always add water
to cause it is acrylic. But I like this brand
because it dries flat. Doesn't have that sheen to it. You can get this effect
with guash, like I said. So this part is super
easy, very meditative. Just kind of going
around satisfyingly. And it's okay that some of
this color shows through. This is why I like also doing the whole background is because you get these
muted colors through here. See that? I still see the
yellow there. I still see some of this brownish red. The more water I
add to my paint, the more I will see through. Down to the watercolor layer
that is underneath it. I got some on the
inside of the circle, so I just wiped
it with my finger really quick before it's set. Pick up my page, too, so I don't get paint
on the page below it. It's very nice. Let's do
this to the other page now. So you can put this layer as thick or as thin
as you want to, but I think it looks kind
of cool seeing some of the translucent qualities happen and seeing what's happening
in the background. I just kind of mutes it out
and makes it very ethereal. So we're gonna let this dry, and then we will move on to the image transfer
for our birds.
5. Transferring the Bird Images: Okay, our pages are all dry. It's time to get out our
images that we are using. I'm using these tufted
tit mouse pictures. I printed them out with
very high contrast, and I lightened
them tremendously and tried to get them
more just black, white and one shade of gray or black white and a
few mid shades of gray. Okay. So I'm just
trimming these down. Trimming these down so I can
place them in my circle. We'll get them looking
at each other. How about that? Now,
my question is, will this one fit in the circle? So there's the beak, there's
the edge of the circle, tail, edge of the circle. He will. So, like, right there, I've placed that one, so I
need to get my washi tape out. And I'm gonna tape them
down. Same with this one. Let's place them in the circle. For this one, I'm looking at the distance between
the beak and the head to the outer circle and the tail in
the outer circle. So maybe, like, right
there, it's pretty good. Okay, so we need to have your pencil and whichever
graphite paper you want. If it's graphite paper you bought or graphite
paper you made. If it's graphite paper you made, just make sure the area with graphite will be able to cover
your area with the image. So for example, on this one,
that seems about right. So I would need to cut my paper. We'll flip it over. See how I flipped it over. So the graphites next
to the paper this time and put it like that, and you can proceed through. Or you have graphite paper. You would just put
the graphite side down and go from there. And you know what? I can do them both ways.
So let's do that. Maybe I'll do this
one with this one. Alright, and all I'm going
to do is go around and hit the major areas. So I'm gonna hit the outline of the bird through the tail. Get the outline of the
dark areas of the wing where the color changes the eye. So we just want to get
enough information down onto the paper so that we can have
an idea of where to paint. Getting the claws. It's hooked around this branch. So I'm gonna draw in part
of this branch, too, just to ground this guy, and we can make that make
sense in our painting. Alright, so let me get the
feathers around the feet. Okay, and where else before
I lift this up? Let's see. I want to catch this line right here and maybe some of
these feathers there. Okay. Lift it up and see
what happens, right? Maybe I'll do this area. Okay, so I can see
it very lightly. I think there's enough
there for me to proceed. It's just enough for my mind, and I'll always have my
reference image here, too. I'm noticing this
tale comes way out here and I really don't
have anything on it, so I'm gonna do that one more
time, pressing down hard. Alright, and that
got it. That brought it out to heres.
Do you see that? Let's go onto this
one. I'm gonna use this paper this time. Okay, let's lift it up. Wow, see, I like this
graphite paper a lot more than my homemade one just because I can see it a lot more. So just remember that graphite
paper is not carbon paper. Graphite paper has
graphite on it. Carbon paper has carbon on it. Carbon is gonna be a lot darker and it's
harder to get off. At least this graphite I can erase with my eraser if I
don't need all these lines. Alright. I'm gonna go back over this one with my graphite paper 'cause
I like it so much. Alright, I'm gonna finish
up these transfers, and then in the next lesson, we are gonna begin
painting these birds and bringing them to
life. See you then.
6. Birds: Building Depth- Adding Lowlights: So in this section,
we're going to begin painting our birds. So I've got out my white
watercolor gouache, which is right here, and my Daniel Smith neutral
tint, which is right here. I love this neutral tint because
we will still be able to see the colors through
the neutral tint. So the stuff that we
put in the background, we sort of will be
able to see still. I'm going to start
with my small brushes, so I'm going to choose
my number four. And I'm just going to go for
some of that neutral tint. Now, I'm gonna
water it way down. It's easier to start
with a lighter layer, and I'm just going to go back
to my reference photo and start hitting these areas that I feel like are
darker than the rest. So I've got my rag handy. And as I do this, I'm
just going to go and pick places in this photo that
I know are the dark spots. So as I'm doing this,
I'm actually assessing in this photograph
all the light areas, the dark areas,
and the midtones. So I'm deciding where in the
bird are those three areas. So I've chosen to start in the midtones and in
the darkest areas. And if you do that and leave
the white areas alone, this bird is going to
start popping out at us. So put some more
water on my brush, keep this pretty liquidy as I'm going around all
these mid tones, coming back up at
the head because I see that that's
like this area of grays and darker areas that
come down toward the beak, and I'm slowly going
to massage this out to get that kind
of ombre effect. So I'm noticing it just
goes from light to dark. So I'm just massaging
these lines and adding more water till I get to the consistency
that I think I want. And I know it's gonna shift
as it dries, and that's okay. That's the nature of watercolor. I think that's why
I like watercolor because it kind of has
a mind of its own. Okay. Massage this line,
that's getting dark. And then I'm gonna drop more
pigment in on this side. Okay? All right. So I'm noticing
this leg is dark right here, so I'm gonna go ahead and pop in that darkness there and
maybe a little bit right in there and go ahead and start darkening the
eye right there. And the beak. Dropping in more
pigment because I'm noticing it gets really,
really dark right there. So I'm gonna go ahead and
start building that out. Alright, and I'm
going to go back. I'm noticing this
is dark here, here, here, here, darker
than the rest of it. Popping a little
bit in those areas. Okay, and I'm gonna
let that dry. Coming over here to
this guy. Same thing. I'm gonna start really liquidy and just start popping
in some mid tones. I'm using that because I see all this is kind of
a mid tone gray. I'm just gonna add some water. More water. This is very dark right here. And under this wing is dark. This other wing
the tail is dark. A little bit under the
belly and by the legs. And then this whole area here at my water
fresh in the water. More water. I'm just
going to kind of wash this middle part and blot. Actually, pop some
darkness in the eye. It's gonna bleed. Okay. See, like, right there, I don't like that cause
it's bleeding out so far. So I'm gonna just
blot the whole thing. I'll come back to the eye. So I'm just removing
some of that pigment. And so we'll let that
catch up with the rest. I'm gonna come back
with some more pigment over here on the wing. Okay, and as I'm going, I noticed I have a few
splotches over here, which is okay, but I am going to wipe them since I noticed it. Bring down the legs. Start getting the feet. All right. Let's come
back over to this guy. Let's wash him like we washed this other one,
like the belly part. So very liquidy. Not
a lot of pigment. Just enough to tint it. Don't try not to touch the
eye this eyes really wet. So it's around the beak. So I don't want to
touch those lines it will bleed like this
eye bled over there. So I'm gonna try to
stay away from it. Feather these edges
a little bit. And I'm noticing it's a
little white right there, so I'm gonna blot
here in the middle. Okay. Maybe right in here. Alright, we'll let that dry.
7. Birds: Bringing It to Life with Highlights: O. Okay, this first layer of
neutral tint is now dry, so we are going to focus on
the white watercolor guash. Now, the reason we're using the white watercolor guash and not acrylic guash is because
we want it to reactivate. We want to be able to come back to this and move it around. So what I'm gonna do because
I've got the whitest white. We just did the
darkest darks, right? Now we're doing the
whitest whites, and I see this stuff
in here on the belly. Let's see it right in here. Okay. All right. And then I also see it back
in here on these feathers. I see it back here. See it around the eye. Oops. So really, I'm just
going in and I'm picking the brightest
bright areas. I'm picking the tones just
shy of the brightest brights, and I'm kind of
massaging them around. So I know, like I said, this belly area is more white. Pick this up. And again, back
here in the wings. So as my brush dries, I'm finding areas that will benefit from the color that is on my brush or what's
going on with it. I actually have more control
over it as it starts drying, and I can push and pull these smaller areas and see how that just
kind of shined up. I just need to put a
little bit of white on this backside over here. Okay. Now, let's try the feet. And it's okay that it's not
the right color right now. I'm just putting a base down
for where the claws are, where the feet are hanging out. Okay, it's coming together. Okay, let's switch birds.
Let's go back over here. For the white, we're gonna
go for the whitest white, which is right here along the neck right up here
at the top of the chest. As my brush is getting
kind of grayish, I'm going down in
these light areas that are darker than that. All right, coming
around here up in the face area behind the eye, down the neck, back
to the breast. See, I love how this
Daniel Smith neutral tint, we can still see
all these greens and browns and yellows
back behind through it. So cool. Same with this
white watercolor guash. You keep enough liquid
with this stuff, and it will be transparent. Okay, get some white
from my feet here. And I'm just starting
to pull this. Like I said before, my brush
is starting to dry out, so I'm able to go now in some of these smaller areas
and mix some grays, mix some tones,
build some depth. Okay, now I've got some
dark dark that eye is dry. And I just want to put
that placeholder back. It might be a little large. Let's remove some of it. Got gray now, so let's hit some areas where it
needs some gray. Some of these smaller feathers. Get that neck fold. Doing these little brush
strokes that mimic feathers. Let's go back over here to
this guy with his feet. So I've got neutral
tint on my brush again. Just dropping in pigment
so that it will offset the feet from the background because the
backgrounds so light. Got neutral tint on my brush, so I'm just laying it down in an area where I feel like it
needs some more variation. Puts more in this eye. We in this eye. Looks at these darker areas, the darkest darks again. What by the nose, beak. I guess it really
doesn't have a nose. Does it have a nose
or is it just a beak? I guess it is a nose.
We'll say nose. We can massage that
a little bit later. We'll get the dark there. Over here in the wing, I still have a lot of
dark on my brush. That's why I'm trying to get rid of it and trying to use it. Okay. And I see some lines coming down So, these heat guns are really
great for this purpose. Got a little bit of
splatter up top, but again, this is watercolor, so I know I can wet it, reactivate it, remove it. Okay, we'll dry these. We're practically done, guys. The hardest part is over. M
8. Birds: Rooted in Reality - Painting Branches: Alright, let's do
some housekeeping. I've got a few
splatters up here, so I am going to
wet my tiny brush. I'm going to reactivate
these areas to remove them. Just kind of scrubbing
on it a little bit. And then I'm gonna take
my rag and just blot. Reactivating that green
back there, the yellow. Okay, that looks a little messy. Kind of not excited that I did that. But you see what I mean? You can move around
this background again. Now, stuff that's on top of this acrylic should just
come up. That's good. So we can keep that clean. Alright. Now what? Let's see. Let's go back in and get some
of this yellow ochre color. And I'm gonna start painting
in some of these branches or this tree just with
a brighter color. Picking up some of the
background yellow. I'll even add some of that
reddish brown back to it. Okay. And our reddish brown. Just now that it's wet, I'm just dropping
a little bit of that reddish brown in in
different areas, not all over. Doesn't take a lot of pigment. Okay, well, let that dry. Let's go in and do the same
thing on the other one. A little bit of yellow ochre. I can tell I've got a
little more pigment on my brush than
I did over here, so I'm gonna rinse and Okay, not as much right there,
but I can always go back and pick up what's up top here. Let that do. And get some of that
reddish brown tint. Drop it in. It should not be uniform. It's good to have
different colors and different shades,
different tones. Makes it more believable. Adding some more red over here. Me.
9. Polishing the Birds: Alright, let's go
back to this guy. And I love how we're
building layers. We're building lots of
layers, and it's so easy. We're just using
two colors here, the white, and the neutral tint. Alright, so I'm going
back to the neutral tint. And I'm gonna go back and start
hitting these dark areas. One last time that
places where I really feel like it needs just a little more depth
to draw your eye in. Okay, I'm noticing this eye. This eye is a little
bigger around it, and it's got that dark line that comes up some right there. So this thing is
not quite round. Buildings more black
right in there, maybe just a little
wispy to come down. Whispys here. And then these long lines
that come this way. Alright, now I'm gonna grab some more white water and blend. Just building up this area some. So when I put white in it, it kind of comes
forward towards you. Okay. And a little more in
the feet. Build that back up. Okay. Liking that a little
bit on the beak up top. Got white on my brush
so I can come back in these gray areas and do
some white feathers. Slowly, it's turning gray. Okay. Then let's see. Back over here, this guy's
looking pretty good. I might add just a little
more white in the middle here just to poof out poof
him out a little bit. Little it down here. And
then up here in the face. When you delight in all of this. Okay, rinse my brush. I'm gonna blend a little bit. And then I'm noticing
I need a little bit on those feathers
on the outside. Okay, that's about it. There. We're gonna let this
dry and we're gonna come back and hit some highlights and low lights with our hemp.
10. Outlining with Micron Pen: Okay, here we go. I'm beginning this video with this micron pen, which is a permanent
pigment pen, and I am just dropping
in some shadows, looking at my reference photo, picking out the darkest of darks that I see
in the photograph. Now, I have admittedly
begun this bird, and my video was not
a very good quality, so I just cut that
little section out, but you'll see the entirety
of the second bird that I do. But here I'm
beginning to outline the branch that the
bird is sitting on. I really want the bird and the branch to be
jumping out at us. And once we add
all the doodles in the background around the
circle that we have made, the bird and the
branch are really just gonna pop out because
of these dark outlines. So as I do this,
I'm then going to arbitrarily kind of
follow along some of the color variations that I have already
made in the branch just to accentuate them so that it looks more branch
or twig like. So I'm just kind of following
lines that I already have there in this dried water color, and there we go. Little branch scene. I like it. So I want you to go around and outline
the rest of the bird, really assess where
the darkest darks are like underneath the wings, like here along the feet underneath the feathers of the feet around
the eye, the beak. Now I'm dropping in
little nails on its toes. And then I'm going to
begin going around the feet and dropping in those darkest
shadows right there. Okay. Now I can move
on to the tail. And I'm just going to go
around the two sets of feathers in the tail and kind of drawing
some individual ones, and same thing on the other
set of feathers here. And I can crisp up the
outlines and continue on. Yeah, this is looking
really great. So let's move on
to this other one so you can really see what I'm
talking about the outline. Alright, so I'm going to
start around the face, around the beak and hit some of the darkest dark areas that
I see and just kind of tap my pen upon the page to suggest some of these
tiny little feathers. I'm crisping up the beak, you know, kind of fine
tuning that line. And then I'm going to
begin very lightly making some of these feathers
and pulling the line down on the front of
the chest of this bird. Okay, so again, looking at
the reference photograph, I see these dark lines here, so I'm going to start pulling
up some of these feathers. Right there, same direction that they lay in is the direction
I want to draw them in. Okay? And then I'm going to
drop in some bigger feathers. The great thing about this is I don't have to draw each
and every feather. I really just need to suggest them here or there for
your brain to sew it together and buy and understand that we are looking
at a tufted tit mouse. Okay, so now I'm again to put these little tiny feathers
in around the beak. Crisping up the
eye a little bit, and now I'm going to go
around the edge of the bird very lightly just to set it
apart from the background. And, wow, does that
really begin to pop off of the
page? My goodness. Alright, going in
through the tail, pulling up some of these lines, and then following
along down the belly. I'm kind of laying my micron on its side so that I can get a little bit of a
finer line with this really big tip
on this number 12. Okay. Get under where these
feet are put some shadows, under give it some claws. And now I'm working on this branch so that I can
tie the room together. Yeah. Alright. Where else? Where else does this guy need? Alright, so all
that's missing now are these little white
dots in the eye. Grab just a little bit of white guash on our
small paint brush, and we're just gonna put a
little bit of a dot right here in the eyeball
to lighten it up. And I'm gonna put some of
this white kind of around the eye so that it looks like there's some
feathers around the eye. Oh Okay. Looks pretty good. Let's see about this guy.
A little bit of white. Alright, so this guy's got
pretty big dot right there. And then it's got this
little trickle of white kind of around the eye. It really makes it stand out. Okay. You put some of the
highlights on the beak. Highlights on the beak. Simple like this is best. So I'm noticing on this one. I actually want them a
little more white under the chin. It's right in there. It's still on my brush, so I'm just finding
places to put it. Okay. All right, we'll
let those guys dry, and then we are
gonna come back and doodle in the
background and complete these beautiful these beautiful birds that we were making.
11. Begin the Doodling: Okay, y'all, we
finally made it to the doodling section
of this video. So I now have my circle
template back out. I have my large
number 12 micron pen. I'm just going to replace the
plate where it was and make a dark circle outline
around the plate. Oh, yeah. Oh, oh, you guys. I love it. Alright, so do the same
thing on this one. Take your time to
replace it so that you don't have to then go back and make a thicker
line. And you can. It's okay. If
you're a little bit off and you remove
the paper plate and your line is not
quite right on your line, you can always come back with a larger marker or just re
thicken the area or something. I'm not a perfectionist, so I don't mind if there's
a few little bumps in the road when I draw things
like this. Oh, yeah. I'm noticing I haven't put in the little lines on the branch like I did on the
one on the right. So I'm just going to pop
those in real quick and complete the continuity
between the two of them. Bring these lines
down a little bit. And yeah, my circle's not quite right right
there, but that's okay. Like I said, I'm just
going to thicken it up and move on with my life. That's right. Okay, so now we need to make
some decisions. You've got your paint pens, you've got some gold and silver paint pens, different colors. Alright, so I'm choosing
to use my gold. You could use any
color you wanted to, depending on your color schemes, and I'm just going to keep
in theme with our circles. So I'm going to start drawing a bunch of
different circles in the background that are different sizes and
different shapes. They're not perfect
circles, right? I'm free handing them. I'm also making
sure that some of them are going to
go off of the page, some of them are
going to go behind the birds circle,
like, right there. That one's a little ovular
oops. But hey, it looks good. It looks natural. So just go around and arbitrarily
pick circles. You want them spaced
out a little bit. I do want to put some you know, like I said, in areas that are gonna fall off of the page. When you do this, it
actually makes your piece of art look larger than it really is because your brain is wanting to know
what's beyond the page. What's falling off of the page. Like, here's
one right here. I'm gonna do bigger and
falling off the page. That's great. How about one? How about one in the middle on the seam to tie the
two pages together? I like that. We have
similarities on each page, but yet each page is its own. It's very different
from the other. That's why I like
this project a lot. Plus, I find that the
more I do things, the better I get. So like, why just make one
when you can make two, and you'll probably
learn something more along the way
when you're doing it. So just continue on doodling. Put your circles all
around the birds. That's a bigger circle.
I like that one. And again, I also like how that translucent quality of the flat acrylic paint that
we put around the circle, I can still see like
that little bit of yellow blush and the
rust color coming out. It's so pretty. I think
these are really beautiful. Kind of looking over
the entire thing, seeing where I need to add. I got a little
smear on this one, but, you know, oh, well,
I'm going to keep going. Maybe a little one right here. And let's see. Over on the side, maybe. And then at the bottom.
Yeah, right there. Okay, so as far as circles,
we're looking pretty good. I'm really liking
this gold color. It looks good with the
yellows and the rusts and just adding a few more
little ones here or there. A couple more little ones. Just can't help myself. Okay. Alright, I really
am gonna stop soon. Okay, so just do
until you're happy, and then we are going to start making these
little yin yang shapes. So just go inside
of your circles, and you're going to make that
S curve like a yin yang. And then I'm just
going to pull a couple of lines inside of that. So my yin yang shape, one line in the center, and then a line of
circle around that. These little guys,
I'm just going to put one line right there
that's all that can fit. So just watch your hand
as you make these so you don't drag your hand through the paint
like I did earlier. It'll be easier for me to demonstrate on one of
these larger ones. Okay, so like right here, pull an s curve into that yin yang. Okay. Then I'm going to come up through the middle
with one line, and then I'm going
to come back around that line to fill in
that extra space. And that's all I'm doing across the board
on all of these. Unless they're little
like this one, which I'll just do the yin
yang and just pull one line. Okay, so here I go. I'm going to go through
the rest of these. Build your yin yang shapes, pull your one line, and then pull your second
line around that middle line. Yin yang shape, middle line
line around the middle line. Okay? Alright, one more. S curve, and see how I'm twisting it to
go behind the bird, middle, middle line, and then line to go around the
middle line. Perfect. And each one's going to be
a little bit different. So by the time you do
all of these guys, they're all gonna look correct. They're all gonna look uniform. They're all gonna look
or maybe not uniform. They're all gonna look cohesive like they belong together. They're keeping
the same company. Alright, so just gonna
keep on keeping on. And when you fill in
all your circles, I'll show you the next step, which just makes these
little guys turn into seed balls and maybe something that the
birds are hunting for.
12. Building Seed Balls: I So the last thing we're gonna do with our
birds is continue to doodle in these little
teardrop fashions, like we did the yin yang only I've got a
smaller gold pen now. I'm gonna try it out.
If I don't like it, I'm gonna go back
to this other one. But I'm just gonna start pulling out little tear drops
that'll be like leaves. Okay, these are
very gold yellow. Trying to decide if
I like that or not. I don't know that I do. Okay,
let's just go back over it. H Yeah. Okay, so I'm just going
to continue on with my paint pen and make
these little leaf kind of tear drop guys coming off just like they're little seed balls or something that these
birds are looking for. So I'm just stacking them
on top of each other. I'm laying them down on top
of the circles like that. I'm extending them Anywhere I want. Just kind of randomly
randomly choosing some areas. So, like, especially, like, if you choose an area on the offside of the circle
where we haven't drawn, it's gonna show up just
a little bit more. Okay. Maybe some right here. And you can do these in
any pattern or situation. I'm just kind of picking
and choosing as I'm going. Making it look like those are going back
behind the circle. Alright, this is the one
where I smeared earlier, so I'm going to make
sure that I put some teardrops on top of
that so it won't look funny. Just like that. Let's
see, down here. Just a few little leaves. H Okay, and just kind of evening it out, looking around the
entire page to see where it just needs some
interest to pull our eye. It's like I'm gonna get
down here at this corner. And you know how we like
things going off of the page. So I'm gonna make sure I do some of that with these leaves. And maybe over here.
13. Conclusion & Gallery: All right. There you have it are
cute bird circles that were made with watercolors,
abstract background. We use guash to make the birds. We've used acrylic flat or
guash for the background, and then we have come
back and doodled on it with some paint pens. How beautiful. And I
can go ahead and keep embellishing if I want
to if I wanted to add, like, a border of dots. Let's go around real quick just to see what that frames
it out and looks like. Just making the
choice not to go on top of the circles
I already made. I'm just kind of letting those
break up the border yeah. Wow. Isn't that pretty. Beautiful, modern spring bird circles of a tufted tip mouse. I hope you enjoyed this and are encouraged to make more
circles with more animals using this easy technique with Daniel Smith neutral tint and white watercolor
gouache to make the birds. Alright, I'll see you
guys in my next class. Hope to see you
again soon. Cheers. Mm.
Jules Art Bender, Artist and Art Educator
