Naturalistic Hairstyles in Watercolor: a Guide to Painting Lifelike Hair With Watercolor

1. Introduction: Hi, my name is Molly Barker, and today we are going to be learning how to use watercolor to create beautiful, natural looking illustrations of different types of hairstyles. Watercolor is one of my absolute favorite mediums, and I adore using it to illustrate anything from plants to architecture, to people. There are many different ways that watercolor can be used to create various looks for these different subjects. In this class, I'm going to utilize layering with a big brush, followed by smaller and finer details laid down with smaller and smaller brushes to create the illusion of volume, dimension, and flow of hair. We'll start this class by sketching three separate hairstyles using a very soft technique. And then we'll begin to layer on watercolor, starting with a light washes and moving into smaller details with darker paint. Eventually, we'll use a fine liner brush to paint individual strands of hair. I am really looking forward to starting this watercolor journey with you. In the next lesson, we'll briefly cover materials that you'll need and we'll talk about the class project. I'll see you there. 2. Project and Materials: In this lesson, we're going to be covering the class project and the materials required to create the class project. The project will be to choose a hairstyle and follow along the steps in this class to create a beautiful painting. And you can find this hairstyle from anywhere. You can take a picture of yourself. You can have a mirror present, or you could find something online. Just look at Pinterest for braids and that kind of thing. And you'll be able to find a good picture for reference. And then we'll also be covering the required materials. So we won't need much, but we'll cover those next. Let's jump right in and let's talk about what we'll be needing. Materials wise. For watercolor paper, I like Arches watercolor paper. It has a satin grain and it's 140 pounds nice and thick. The SAT and grain means that the paper itself is very smooth with not very much tooth. And I think that that's really important for natural things like hair. You want it to be nice and smooth. So that's the paper will use it we're using. If you want to use something else, try and get a hot pressed paper. And other than that, that would be just fine. We'll also need some paint. What I'm going to be using is the Winsor and Newton professional paints. And you can use any paint that you have or any paint that you prefer. Instead. What we'll really be using is the Naples yellow, the Van **** brown, and the white that I have here. And you can go ahead and use any of your favorite colors. This is just the kind that I have in the kinds that I prefer using. You will also need a napkin to wipe your brushes on, and then you'll need some pencils and some brushes. The pencil that I'm going to be using is a mechanical five millimeter at 0.5 millimeter pencil. This is a Pentel P2O5, absolute favorite pencil here, you can see how thin it is. It leaves a very fine mark, exactly what we're looking for. Then I'm going to be using three different brushes. This is the Winsor and Newton Series seven C7 round brush. And I adore this brush. It is one of my most favorite to use. You'll need this for the larger washes and you can use it any other larger brush as well. But this is the kind that I have that I prefer. A Winsor and Newton size three brush. And this is what we'll be using for some of the smaller shadows, some of the darker painting that we're going to be doing. It's a nice brush, nice and sharp point, exactly what you want for doing hair. And then the last thing that we're going to be working on with using is the point, I'm sorry, the size, zero, Winsor and Newton brush, It's very small, very thin, and makes it a very fine line, exactly what we want. So this is all that we'll need and let's go ahead and get started. 3. Laying Down a Sketch: In this lesson, we're going to begin with a sketch. We're going to be using pencil for this sketch. It will be very soft and not very visible. We'll be sketching with the intention of painting with watercolors, will also be thinking about the three-dimensional nature of the human head and how to draw hair with the right flow and volume so that you can depict hair in different hairstyles. The first thing that I wanted to talk about while we're doing this sketch is the angle that I'm holding my pencil. When you sketch with the intention of painting over it later with watercolor, you don't want to have really deep indentations. The paper. You don't want to have your pencil gouging the paper and causing the water to pool in these sketchy marks later. So you want to do is hold your pencil at an angle and have very soft, very delicate lines just so that you're aware of where you should be doing your painting. This isn't one of those things where you draw something perfectly and then paint exactly within the lines. So what we're doing here is we're just taking the shape of the human head. We have now the model is looking away from us at a slight angle and you can see the shape of her head and the outline of her hair. Now what I'm doing is I'm going in and I'm adding in just the details that I don't want to forget about. These are little notes to myself for how I want this hairstyle to look when I painted. This is going to be a big thick braid. And as you can see, I just have the shape of the head. I have the shoulders of the woman, and I have This sort of an outline of where the hair is going to be and then in which direction it flows. And as we paint will be able to really increase the fluid look of hair. And so right now, we just want to have the basic outline so that we know where to paint later. And as you can see, I have it so that you can see that the larger segments of hair. So we'll know where to paint later. This next one that we're going to paint is going to be a sort of a crop, a milkmaid braid, the one that goes all the way around your hair, your head. You can see, I'm going to be doing a slightly different angle. The camera will be somewhat more above her head instead of right behind it. And what you're doing here is you're just laying down notes for yourself. You're just laying down this the directionality of the head where this character is looking. We're also thinking about where the light source is going to be. And so you'll be able to add dimension by including shadows and highlights. And so right now again, we're just going to do the details and you can see I'm adding just a little bit of the braid. You're putting notes to yourself. If I want to have some loose hair here, the bridle go around the head this way. This is the shape of the head, that sort of thing. And you can take these principles of understanding the three-dimensional shape of the head and then adding in the flow of the hair into every single hairstyle that's out there. So you can see the first thing I do is I draw the shape of the head as if she has no hair. And then sort of add volume on top of that, you don't want it to be that the hair is slipped down onto the skull. And so you want to have sort of a fluffy volume of hair above the shape of the skull. And again, you can see I'm just doing a little bit of detail about the direction that the hair is going to be. And the light source for all of these is going to be off to the right. And so you'll be able to see the shape of the head for all of these, all of these different paintings. And the very last one that I'm going to be doing is a crown, twisted crown. And so this one actually ended up being my favorite when it's all said and done. But you can see I have the round shape of the head. And then we have the hair twisting up around itself all the way around the head. And it's sort of interesting because it's not, it's not graded, It's just twisted so you can make it look very fluid. And the outcome, the final outcome is actually quite beautiful. So that's what we're doing in this first section. We're just going to be sketching out the shape of the head, the shape of the hair, where we want certain aspects of the hair to lie. Once we have that, once we have this, this idea, we can move on to the painting. But if you don't have an idea, if you don't have this shape, you don't have the shape of the head, you don't have the shape of the hair. It's very easy to make mistakes with paint. I always like to have just just these little notes to myself so that I can very easily painted later. Once you do the painting, you actually can't really see this pencil mark underneath. So do keep the pencil marks light. But if you're going to have a darker hair color, brown, black, dark blond, then you really won't be able to see the pencil marks underneath anyway, so you don't have to be too concerned. Again, hold the pencil at an angle instead of straight down so that you don't scratch the paper and gouge it for the watercolor. And this is basically it. This is what we're going to start with. So I would highly encourage you to find a model, maybe a mirror. Look at your own hair. Think about the way that it flows and twists. Take a look of your hair and braid it and see, see the direction that you have to fold the hair in order to make a braid actually work. And just study what it looks like. And also add a light source to your hair and look at the shine, look at the shadows and see how it's different. And I will see you in the next lesson where we'll be starting our very first layer of watercolor. 4. First Wash: In this lesson, we're going to be laying down our first wash of color. Make sure that you leave whitespace is to indicate shine from a light source. This should be the lightest color that you lay down, covering the largest amount of space. And as we go on, we'll be making darker colors with smaller spaces. The first thing that we're going to do is pick up some of this nice, this is Naples yellow. And I'm going to be using this for the milkmaid braid. And so as you can see, I have a large amount of water and just a little bit of paint. So this is going to be a very light wash. And what I'm going to do is cover the whole section of hair. So all of the hair I'm going to cover except for a few nicely picked out highlights. And now as we do this, keep in mind where your light sources. So again, my light source is going to be above, right? And so you can see I have the sections of hair that would touch that light most. I'm leaving white. And we're going to go ahead and do the same thing with this braid. And I'm using a Van **** brown with just some color, a little bit of color, a lot of water. And as you can see, I've taken my round brush. This is a round brush number seven, and flattened it out a little bit. You can use pretty much any brush you want when you're using a wash, you want to use a larger brush just so that you can carry enough water. And again, I'm doing this same thing. I'm just going to cover the whole area of hair, leaving tiny highlights. These highlights, you'll leave completely uncovered. And as we go on, we'll have this light wash, which will be the base. And we'll cover most of it with darker and darker colors as you go on. So as you can see, it's a really light. So think of this as like the hair that's being touched most by the sun that isn't shiny. And so this is, this is the very first thing that you're going to do. And if you want, you can do wet on wet technique. So instead of laying down the wash directly onto dry paper, you can add water first. But I felt like this is such a small area that it wasn't totally necessary. You can just just keep moving so that the paint doesn't dry as you go. And this this crown twist, I'm using a mixture of the Van **** brown and the Naples yellow. So it's gonna be a little bit of a lighter brown but not blonde. And you can see, again, I'm leaving these small highlights. And in the next lesson, we will be doing a darker shadow. I'll see you there. 5. Second Wash: In this lesson, we're going to be laying down our second wash. So think about the directionality of the light source where the shadows lie. This second wash is your first indication of shadow. So you need to be very aware of where the light is. Prior to this, your painting is rather flat. So with this first layer of shadow, you are beginning to take that flat thing and give it a dimension. You'll be able to see the volume, size of it. You'll leave the white areas white and let some of that first wash shine through. Don't cover everything, makes sure that you have some still visible. Then with watercolor, always start by covering the largest space with the lightest color. Adding darker and darker paints to smaller and smaller areas as you go on. We'll be adding more and more details as we go. So the first thing that we're going to do is pick up a bit more of this Van **** brown. And you can see this is the portion that was the wash of the Van **** brown. And so I've just added a bit more pigment with the same amount of water, so you can see it's quite a bit darker. I've also switched from my lips, my size seven brush to a size three round brush. And you can see that the marks that it makes her substantially smaller, thinner, sort of easier to control. And what I'm doing here is I'm thinking about all of the places, places that the shadows are going to be. So you want to leave quite a bit of this lighter wash visible. You want it to be able to shine through. But you also want to cover all of the areas that the shadow will be will be covering, again, this darker area with an even darker yet shadow color. So as we paint this, keep that in mind. Keep in mind the direction of the hair. In which way is it flowing? And think about how it would sit on the head. It wouldn't be flat, it would have thick, rounded sections to it. And you always want to paint in the direction that the hair is going so that it looks more, looks more fluid, looks more like actual hair. And you'll notice as we go along, as it stands, it looks rather plastic. It looks sort of fake right now. But as you get on a, when you do finer and finer details, you'll be adding little things like little flyaway hairs and tendrils of hair coming down and things that look like actual individual hairs. And it will really add sort of realistic look to it. So we're going to go ahead and add a move on to this milkmaid parade. And this one, I always find that blonde hair is a bit tricky because it's so light. How do you add how do you add adequate shadow to it? I added some more Naples yellow. And you can see it's, it's more, it's more vibrant. So this is still hair thing about this is still here. That's probably going to be somewhat in the light. So this won't have direct light on it mostly, but it will have, it will be illuminated by light. And blonde hair is quite, quite golden as, as the sun touches it. We're going to be doing this. We're going to add this to all of the shadow areas just like the braid. And keep in mind that this is not yet the darkest colors. So don't be, don't be too concerned, don't be overly cautious. But do is add the shadows to each section of hair. If you miss it and you add a darker shadow later on, it, it tends to change the color. It makes it look more obvious. It's sort of jumps out at you that there's a missing layer in there. So we don't want that. And so what we're doing now is we're adding a little bit more Van **** brown and a little bit more Naples yellow. For this twisted hair on the side is Crown, Crown twist. And this one I found to be really tricky. I'm not entirely sure why, but the way that the head is rounded and you can see the top portion of the head, but the twist comes back onto itself. I found that to be a little bit difficult to work with, but again, I end up liking this one the most. So add the shadows. Wherever the twist would cause a cast shadow. And then wherever the head starts to curve, that's where you're going to be adding shadows. And you can see the way that I'm holding the brush. I don't have it flat against the paper. I'm holding it quite upright so the tip is touching it. This allows me to make finer, thinner and more delicate strokes with this, with this brush. So don't be, don't be too concerned about this layer. I would say this layer is probably the most boring because you don't yet have the really fine tendrils that you get to paint later on. But again, you can see I'm avoiding these white highlights. You'll want to make sure that those are able to stay visible. Alright, we'll be adding some more really fun detail in the next lesson. I'll see you there. 6. More Detail: In this lesson, we'll be adding more detail. This will be our first round of additional detail, beginning to really highlight the flow and directionality of the hair. This will allow us to capture the way that the hair folds and twists and as it sits in these intricate braids. Alright? This lesson is where it starts to get really fun. As you paint each layer, you want to make sure that the previous layer is completely dry, especially now when you're adding more detail, you want the page to be completely dry so that none of this paint bleeds. You want it to stay in very fine lines. And as you can see, I'm using quite a dark paint here, quite a lot of pigment, very little water. And this is going to be the second-to-last shadow. So you can see the, the real darkness, how it really adds this, this shape to the head. And I'm also going to be using this paint as sort of a way to add these nice fine lines to indicate the individual hairs and the shadow of each, each segment of here. You can see I'm covering larger portions in the shadowed areas. And then as I come to an area that's closer to the sun, closer to the light source or still being touched by the light. I have these finer lines coming across and it really adds to the texture and the feel of the hair. So we're going to be doing this with with each of these. And you can see how I'm, I'm taking each each section and I'm, I'm painting it in the direction that the hair is going to be braided or folded or twisted. And you want to make sure that you keep that same directionality of the same vector field in the hair as you paint. You can see that I'm leaving these white highlights mostly visible. You can see all the way down even to the very first wash. It really adds a really thick depth so you can see the dimension of the hair. You can see how it looks more like it's popping off of the page. And I think this is one of my favorite times where you get to start adding these. These were really small and intricate details that are just, you know, it's sort of starts to make the painting, the sketch in the beginning painting is, it always looks kinda funny. But now at this stage you can tell if it's going to turn out or not. I feel like these this hair really turned out very well. The, the way that you can see the volume of the braid, how you can see how it has this nice, thick, rope-like quality to it. Now we're moving on to this middle milkmaid braid. And as you can see, I'm mixed more of the Naples yellow and a little tiny touch of Van **** brown into this color. Just to give it a little bit more of a shadow. I felt that with this blonde hair, we needed it to be a little bit darker than the Naples yellow. Naples yellow could really get. You can see as you look at my palette, that it's quite thick with paint. It's very vary. A lot of paint, very little water. And again, we're just going to go around and add, adding shadow where the light won't be touching the hair. And you can see how already it's starting to show quite a bit of depth. When you do this. Really think about how the hair lies, how, how fluffy is this braid going to be on this person's head? How, you know, how much hair do they have? Some people don't have very much hair at all. And really think about how you want it to look because by adding less shout, shadow, it'll look much flatter and sometimes that's exactly what you want. So as we move on, let's go ahead and add a little bit more of this Naples yellow and Van **** brown to our crown twist. And you can see it's very thick. Again, it's quite dark. And we're just going to add these hints of shadow. We're going to be, we're gonna be making it look more like hair. And you can see that there's, there's still shadow that's, that's just the casting a shadow. And then there's little individual strands that are coming out in this, in this one. And you can see how by doing this, it really makes it, it really makes it look like it's not just one chunk of hair. You can see the individual sections of hair as they're twisted up and they're really enjoyable thing with this one particularly is the next, the next step that we'll do with it is by adding little tiny strands of individual hairs and the flyaway hairs and the loose hairs. It makes it look very beautiful. And I think that though that step, I enjoy the most. I think that without these initial steps, these initial washes and then layers of shadow, you wouldn't be able to get the really natural, beautiful feeling. These hairstyles. I think though, details are very pleasurable to paint. I think that without these, these initial steps, they would be empty. It would be very hollow. So again, I'm just going to go ahead and lay down a few shadows here and there and don't cover everything in shadow. You want to have a lot of the lighter washes and the white showing through still. We want that to be a really good highlight in this heroin in all hairstyles. So I'm just going to add a few more things. And then the next thing we will do is we will actually finish the braid hair style. So I'm looking forward to that and I hope you are too. I'll see you in the next lesson. 7. Finishing the Braid: In this lesson, we're going to be finishing the braid. This will be the darkest layer of the painting. We're going to use a fine liner brush to create hints of shadow on the smallest details. By adding the hands of this dark shadow, it will give a much more three-dimensional feel, allowing the highlights to really pop. Also, use this as an opportunity to add small details of fine strands of hair that go beyond the original shape of the braid. Small flyaway strands break up the outer shape and make it look more natural as opposed to plastic. The first thing that we're going to do is really mix a very dark Van **** brown. And as you can see, I have this very small size, one fine liner brush. And what we're doing is just adding these very small fly away bits of hair, pieces of hair that are outside of the original shape. By doing that, it allows the shape to be more of a natural and organic kind of thing as opposed to something that looks very contained to think about using Paul made in your hair and how slick and perfect it would be versus having something that's more natural and fluid. So as we have, as we're doing here, we're adding these little shadows. And these are going to be the, the very darkest part of this, of this painting. And so what you'll do is hold the brush almost completely vertical so that you get just the tip and you'll be adding just these small, tiny details. Also as a note with watercolor, when you first lay it down the, well, it's wet. It looks quite a bit darker than it actually is. So though it might seem concerning when you put it down, it will lighten up as it dries. So don't be don't be concerned that you've ruined it because this is too dark. It will lighten as it dries. As you can see, I'm just, just the smallest, finest lines. And you can see that this tangible by the ear. How just those little tiny marks makes it look more like real hair, more natural as opposed to this thick shape that, that looks too perfect. So keep that in mind as you paint. And just sort of add, add little details where you think they're missing. Even if it's, you can add a dark line of hair, even the brightest highlights. And sometimes that really, really makes the whole painting. I think that looks pretty good. I'm really liking how this one turned out. Let's go ahead and move on to the milkmaid braid. And I'll see you in the next lesson. 8. Finishing the Milkmaid: In this lesson, we're going to be finishing the milkmaid braid. Again, small details of very dark colors allow for the actual shape of the hair to pop, preventing a very flat look. The objective here is to add the darker shadows to show the real volume of the hair. Also add small flyways that will break up that perfect outer shape. And to create the look of these small, fine flyaway hairs. Hold the brush straight up and down, allowing only the finest point of the tip to touch the page. Alright, so here we go. We're going to start on this milkmaid braid. And as I mentioned before, I always feel like blond hair is a bit more difficult to work with them very dark hair. And so we're actually going to be adding two different dark shadow colors. And we're going to be using this is, this is mostly the Naples yellow, as thick as you can make it almost like a paste. And just a touch of Van **** brown. And you can see I'm adding these lines are a bit thicker. They're a bit a bit larger than the braid when I was using just straight Van **** brown. And so you can see I'm still kind of laying down this one has sort of a, an additional layer of shadow. And we're just going to be putting a bit more dimension into this braid. I felt that it was still looking a bit too flat or detached from the head. And so I'm going to be adding these and don't be don't be too hesitant to put down a lot of paint. Because sometimes you're painting just needs that. You just eyeball it and see if it's, if it's looking, how you desire it to look. So with this one, we're going to, what you can see, we've laid down all these nice shadows. And now we're going to be putting these tendrils. And I felt that this one was very plastic looking, so I wanted to add quite a few tendrils. I wanted to break up the shape of this, of this braid. And so you can see I'm putting little flyaway hairs all outside of this braid. And it's, it really adds a lot to this painting. I feel like before it was a bit, it didn't quite capture what I was going for. These little flyaway hairs really make it look much better. And the next thing that we're going to do is we're going to be taking a slightly darker color will add. And then here I'm just going to add a little bit more volume to the back of the head. I felt like it was too flat, too stuck to that. The last thing that we'll do is add some Van **** brown and make it just a bit darker. And we'll add sort of peek through shadows into the braids and into the darker portions of the shadows on the head. And I feel like it really adds something. So you'll see here I've got this nice Van **** brown, and I'm going to add a little bit more. That looks quite dark compared to the rest of her hair. And I feel like it was just really necessary for this one just to give it that additional depth. And you can see I'm holding my brush almost perfectly straight up and down, just letting the very tip touch. You don't want to have big swaths of shadow at this stage, you just want to have the tiniest details. So that's why we're using such a small brush and making such small marks. And there you can see I'm doing a little bit more of an outline with these just because it seemed to be kind of hidden in the rest of her hair. And we're almost done. I think that this one actually turned out quite well. I was concerned about it at the beginning, but I liked how this one turned out at the end. Alright, the next one we'll do is the twist, and I'll see you in the next lesson. 9. Finishing the Crown: In this lesson, we're going to be finishing the crown twist. This is a really great example of how these small details of shadow take a painting from looking very flat to beautifully three-dimensional without much effort. The flyways are particularly important in this hairstyle. As I think that it looks too controlled without them. Once added, the hairstyle looks loose, natural and easy. Of these three paintings, I feel like this one is the one that really improves the most in this stage. And as you can see, I'm just going to mix up a little bit more of this paint and have it ready to go. And we're just going to be adding the darker shadow to get that depth. And you can see with this one particularly, it's, it looks nice but it looks quite wouldn, it looks rather stiff. And so I think that by adding these, these details, adding the shadows and later on the flyaway hairs, it just really makes a dramatic improvement on this hairstyle. And it's one that you look at and actually really enjoy painting. When you're done with it, you look back and you say, Oh man, that actually turned out really well, I like that one. I think it's important to have that in your painting. I think it's important to look back and say, this one turned out, okay, this one turned out not so good, but this one turned out really beautifully. And to be able to give yourself just a little bit of praise for what turned out well and what didn't. And so here we go. We're just going to be adding again these little shadows. These little shadows to allow the, the actual fluffy twist to take shape and pop off the page. Fine, fine lines are what will make it look so nice at the end. And you can see I mentioned before, don't be concerned about putting fine lines even through the darkest portions of the hair. And this is the lightest portions of the hair. This is a really good example of that. You can see that I'm having these really dark, very fine lines coming up even through these highlights on the hair. And it really adds, it really adds a nice volume and nice dimension to the hair. So at this point, I'm just adding the tiny details still, but it still looks wouldn't. So next we're going to be adding the little flyaway bits. And with this, with these little tiny flyaway hairs, it takes the shape from, again, this wouldn't hairstyle to something that looks natural, something that looks like it would actually be on a woman's head. You can't, you can't really prevent flyways. But by painting like this, you can really make it look natural. And you can see just, just where there would be flyways on a normal hairstyle, the nape of the neck. Sort of if some of the tendrils, maybe we're coming loose. And it just really adds this natural beauty to this final step of painting. And yeah, I just, I really loved this one. I loved painting it and I love seeing it at the end. Alright, that looks great to me. So we're going to move on and do some tiny finishing touches on the rest of them. And I'll see you in the next lesson. 10. Finishing With White: In this lesson, we'll be painting the final details, will be placing fine hints of white, which will add yet another dimension to the final painting. In my mind, I always like to call this part the owed to the white hair. Then our final painting is complete with watercolor. It's very difficult to use white paint since it's so shear. Normally what you do is you have the white of the page be you or your essential white paint. But I always feel like just having this little tiny touch of white here and there really adds to the dimension. It covers up little bits that look, That's sort of give it just a little bit more thickness. So what we're doing here is we're just adding little touches of white. Just get a nice thick bit of white, just straight white from your palette. Just adds a little tiny hints here and there. I always like to call this the 0 to the white hair because there's always that, oh no, the very first white hair. But somehow it adds to the humanness of the painting. It makes it look even more natural than it was before. And it also adds to the highlights. I feel like it's necessary to do that in painting. Sometimes just give it just a little bit more of a realistic look. We're going to be doing that. Just add like these little highlights here and there. And oftentimes they don't even show up very much. You can always leave this part out, but I feel like it's just one of those things that adds to it. It's just the final thing that makes it just really, really complete. And when you go back and you look at it, it really does give it just one more dimension, one more thing to make it look thick and real. This is always one of my favorite parts. Peeling the tape off and being able to really look at your painting as a complete piece. And I think that's true for almost every artist is. That is the last step. All the painting is done, the paint, the tape is removed from the paper. And we're gonna do this. And then the last thing is of course to sign it. And I had so much fun teaching this lesson with you guys. So make sure that you leave a review. And I would absolutely love to see your final paintings. So please don't forget to post them in the project review section.