Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hey, everybody, Welcome to my studio. I'm Melissa Hyatt, and I live on Eastern Long Island and I'm a watercolor artist and living by the beach. I paid a lot of coastal elements. One of my favorite things to paint is blue claw crabs. That's what this class is gonna teach you today, my step by step process for painting this creature. So he's been featured on dinnerware and parents in my calendar. These really popular is probably with my customers, and he is one of my favorites. So I want to share with you my process for painting him and watercolor. I'm gonna talk about supplies, give you an overview. We'll talk about the cost project, and then I'll take a step by step in my process. So grab some brushes and your paints and your paper and let's start painting.
2. Supplies : Now I want to talk to you about supplies that you'll need to create your class project. First thing we should talk about is watercolor paper. There's a lot of choices out there. The paper I love to use is arches, £140 cold. Press paper. Cold pressed paper gives the paper more of a texture than hot press hot first papers. A lot smoother still rate for water colors, just a personal preference of mine. Since I'm using £140 paper, it should be taped down to a board. You could use foam core board. You could ease Gator board. You could use Masonite. I like to use this white artist tape to take my painting down. I use a lot of pain, and I use a lot of water, which can sometimes make paper ripple. So it's a good idea to tape it down or use the paper that comes in the water color block. That's another option. Then I like to have small little scraps of paper so I could test my color on it as I'm painting. Another option on watercolor paper is the cancel on watercolor paper Excel. It is also 100 and £40. A lot of people do like this. It's much more economical. It's it's a good option. Um, yeah. So you you use what you have or if you want to get something I suggested, I'm gonna put all of the supplies inthe e class notes at the bottom of the page. So then, uh, we've got paper and we're gonna need just use a regular number two pencil and I like to use a needed or research. It's just softer on the watercolor paper on Easy to move some pencil lines around. So pencil and eraser and then some watercolor brushes. And I like to use the rounds. This is, Ah, Low Cornell Ultra around. I've got a number four and then my favorite number eight. And I've also got a Princeton Neptune that's also a number eight. You could just kind of see the difference in the points. There's a much finer point on these two. This one's a little bit Think are so good for bigger areas. It's good to have a variety of brushes. Then we have a palate. This is actually one of my travel pallets, and I like the compact size of this, and it's got some key colors in here that I know I'm gonna use when I paint my blue claw crab. Ah, Scarlet Lake, which this is a whole bine color is great for the accents in the little tips and the claws of the crab. And then I've got some cobalt blue. I've got this verdict, er blue, which is another whole buying color That's really gonna be nice for these greater lighter areas in the arms of the clause. And then I've got transparent turquoise, which is one of my favorite colors. It's a really beautiful, clear blue that's great and like a nice deep green. Even a Ninjago is good. Eso pretty much use what you have. You could always add additional colors in the end, but that's just a basic kind of color palette that I like to use when I'm painting these creatures as well. I've got to water jars here, and I like to have to, because I try to keep one fairly clear and clean because I paint a lot with just water on my brush. And if I just have one drawer, I'm constantly rinsing off my brush. It's gonna get kind of dirty as well. I use a small little spray bottle that I will reactivate my pants on my palette, and it's just a good way to distribute some water. So just a simple little spray bottle. You're gonna need your photo reference. So if you want to do some image searches online and find the crab that you want to paint, you can do that. Have it either on on iPad or you could print it out. Have it ready to go. I highly recommend having a reference to paint from. It's really important. It helps you as you're working on your piece. It gives you clues on what to do next, areas that are darker and lighter. So references really super important. I also like to have some paper towels. I don't use a lot, but just to have one or two around in case I need to block up a little bit of paint, or if I need to dry off my brush and one other little truck that I like to dio in, this is typically on my desk, I take a stack of paper towels. This is maybe that looks six or eight in it. Stack them up and then I wrapped them with a handy wipe. And when I uM mixing and rinsing my brush off, I just use this to dry it off. And it helps save on the amount of paper towels that you use, because I could reuse this over and over and over again. And then I just wash this outer layer or I replace it. So that's a nice way to save paper and not use an excessive amount of paper towels. So that's the basic supplies that we need. And check out the list down in the notes, and I'll see you in the next lesson where I'm going to talk about the sketch.
3. Sketch: So first up, I like to do a light pencil sketch on my watercolor paper, both whatever the element is that I'm painting and I just keep it really soft. I would like to have a little bit of a guideline, so I know where the object is gonna be placed on the page and what I need to dio. So I'm just going Teoh, do a simple little sketch and show you how I would approach that. Great. So there he is. I just looked at my reference. I looked at those shapes. I got the feeling of the body. The larger shape is probably a good place to start. I'll make sure that he's placed on the page. You're not dropping him off at the bottom and you can interpret it any way you want. I changed a little some of these shapes a little bit intentionally, so I didn't want this one to be exactly the same as that. One of his eyes are a little further apart and you gotta figure in nature every crab is a little bit different, so you just make him yours. You're the artist. It's your choice. You know, you make it work for you. So this is my simple little sketch. And there's some areas. Maybe I would just light in them a touch, because once you put the paint and water on top of the sketch, you're not gonna be able to erase that. It's gonna sort of adhere it to the paper. So if you want to lighten it, I suggest you would do that now. So I just want to show you quickly. If you're not working on a water color block, I just want to show you how to take down your paper. So this is just a simple piece of foam core board, and I have this artist weight shape is great because it won't rip the paper when you pull the tape off the paper. So that's important. So I just with the tape a little bit over the edge bottom gonna cheap it on all four sides , so it holds it down nicely. And I don't get too much buckling or rippling when I'm painting the peace because I know that I'm gonna be using a lot of pain and a lot of water, and sometimes that happens. Tape it on the left side in, then on the top. So once I'm finished are taking this down. That means I am ready to paint. So the next lesson I'm going to talk to you about color color mixing, and I'm going to get ready and we're going to start painting or crab.
4. Mix the colors: but I'm starting a new piece and I finished my sketch. The next thing I like to dio is mixed up my colors in my palette. So when I look at my reference and I see all kinds of colors in this crab, which is why I love painting him so much, he's got this beautiful sort of ultra marine British kind of blue in this lower part of his leg and claws. So I'm gonna mix up a little bit of that. I'm wedding my brush first, I'm picking up a little bit of ultra Marine blue and then I'm gonna add a little bit of the verdict or blue that I love. And in the supplies, I talked about having a small little scrap of paper available to test your color. I'm going to do that now. That blue there, which looks good like that there's my blue and the next I see a lot of green. Even though it's a blue claw crabs, there is still a lot of green and him, So I'm gonna mix up a little, a little bit of green. This is a sap green, and I'm actually gonna add a little bit of blue to it. It's not quite as a yellowy green as I see it in the pure color and probably add a little touch like toe Had burnt Sienna uh, come toned down my colors when I need to tell a color a little bit seems to work well so again when I just that color on here kind of like a nice light yellow we careen for like that in next Really, really, really dark green. And there say, Russian green that I love to use It's really, really, really, really, really dark green. You can also get the feeling I'm gonna make some in to go in with my green. Yes, it's my end ago right here. This is gonna be a really important color at the end. When I add all the depth to that show, see, have dark, that color is gonna get looking. I start green going. I'm probably gonna need to mix more that color. So go back and I'm gonna get a little more into go. Sure, it's nice and dark, some as well. I see some gray blues in these areas. Somebody mix up some grey blue as well. That's a little bit of in to go there. Then I talked before about the burnt Sienna. I'm gonna grab a little of that that will definitely Dawlat town. It's probably darker than what I need. But the good thing about watercolors, if you mix the color darker than what you really want it to be, all you need to do is out of water to it, to lighten it. So that's pretty cool. It's easier to a light in a dark color, then it is too dark in a light color. You need to mix more paint in there. It's probably gonna take you a little bit longer to do that. All right, so getting some blues going here, I like to have a lot of variation in my colors. I think that makes the peace even more interesting when you get a lot of variation going. Here's another blue good options and then the accent color in the tips of the shell and on the closets, this really vivid, beautiful orange. So I'm gonna mix a little bit orange. This looks this looks really bright to me. That is pretty much the scarlet like all by itself. So I'm gonna dull it just slightly and add in just one part of it. I'll keep a little bit of it, right, cause it's nice to have the variation when you pick up a color on your brush. So that's sort adult, that orange down just a little bit. And then I'm gonna go back, and I'm going to get a little more of that pure scarlet lake color and sort of have that ready to go on the other side of that mixture. Like I said before, you want to light in that color a little bit. We're gonna do some light washes first, so we're probably gonna be adding water to a lot of these. I'm really not using them pure, but I'll show you. This is sort of how they break down when you add a little water. You could just tested out with your chips. Sounding a little bit of water on this side, we could see what that blue does. Oh, I love that blue looks really pretty, and even this green like let's just see what happens at a little bit of water. The that, and let it kind of flow into the the pool of water. I think that's a good start, for the palate can always add colors as I go. You can always reference a color wheel if you need to figure out how to mix some of the colors. If you have a limited palate, maybe you just have yellow, red and a blue, you know, using your color formulas to mix up the additional colors. I always like to look back at my reference. It's always agree place when im sketching it. It helped me figure out my shapes and my placement for the legs. And now for color, whatever reference you're gonna use for color, just keep referring back to it and work on mixing up those colors. And when you're happy with the palette that you've created, then you're ready to move on to the next step.
5. Updated! Light Washes: Alright, here we go. We're going to start putting
some color into our crab. When I am starting
to paint anything, whether it's a landscape or
an object or a creature. What I like to do is my
method is to start with the light washes
and then I slowly build up into my darks. So what we're gonna do now, looking at our reference and
this is a new photo that I've uploaded into the project
area for you to look at. It's an actual photo of a crab. And I've got here
another reference of a painted crab that I've
done in my sketchbook. And then another little
actual crab painting that was done by a local, the Cornell Cooperative
Extension marine program. So I've got a couple of
different references to combine. And I wanted to show you how I would start
with my light washes. So the first thing
I want to start with is there's this
beautiful light green happening in these claws and a little bit in the shell. So I'm going to start
with that light green. I had mixed it up in my palette. Sometimes I mix
the color a little darker than to add a
little water to that. And a little touch
of the screen here. I'm always like
mixing in my palette, mixing up my washes before
I put them onto the page. So I want you to do the same. Sometimes I will do some
mixing on the page. I do do some what's called
wet on wet painting for this part of the process. I'm probably a little bit more just putting the wet
paint on the dry paper. So I'm just kinda setting
the stage and laying in some of these soft
colors in each of the legs. I'm going to add a little
bit of the soft green. Could see I'm adding a
little bit more there. Now I just have clear
water on my brush so I can lighten an
area if I feel like it got a little dark and put a little bit of that
light green here as well. I'm also going to
add a little bit. If you look at the shell. There's a lot of
variation of color, which was one of
the reasons why I love to paint these crabs. So there's a lot of there's some light areas where
there's light green. I'm just going to put a
little wash of that now. It's kinda good to have
a little bit of a base before you start putting some
of the darker layers on it. Now I'm going to start and I'm going to
put a little bit of blue and some of these
bits of the legs. Now you can see I already
had a little green in there. So those colors are
starting to blend a little. I'm doing a little bit
of wet on wet painting, which I kinda constantly mix the two techniques
in my paintings. Again, I'm going to use a
little bit of that wet on wet. Again. Remember this is the light wash, this is the first layers
of this particular color. Another technique I'll use, I feel like I got a little
dark over here on this blue. I just use a paper towel. I sort of bunch it up and
while it's still wet, I just lightly lift
that off of the page. I also want to put in on
some of these smaller legs. There's like a grayish. I'll add the color over here. I'm just gonna kinda
make this gray. It's almost like a little
bit of a purply gray. And I'm just gonna kinda keep these legs a lot of times don't have a
ton of color on them. So just like a light wash. I'm looking at the
reference here. You can kinda see the gray
and those smaller legs. Just going to spot
some of that in now. I'm going to switch now to using a variation of this
turquoise color. I am going to lighten
it like that kind of a wash because these lower
legs are much bluer. There are also great
at the same time. So I'm gonna kinda
capture that feeling. And I'm going to gray
this blue just to touch. And to do that, I'm actually
adding a little bit of that burnt orange here
on the palette to it. You can see now I have a
little bit of a gray or tone. So again, thinking
this is my first, my first layer down here. Adding a little water to that color is blue
with a little bright. You could put on some music
while you're painting. A lot of times I just
kinda like the silence. I'd like to repeat a color
throughout my painting. It helps it stay cohesive. So I'm going to bring some of this gray green up into
these upper clause. Especially this part come
like the elbow on that. When I see a lot of
that gray green. I'll put a little bit
into these smaller ones. At this stage, a lot
of times I'll look at my painting and think doesn't
really look like anything. But what we're doing
is we're laying the foundation for
the darker colors that we are going
to add in here. This is just the beginning, and we're going to
add the darks on top. So I've got some
nice light greens. I've got this gray green, which I'm really
liking in the legs. I'm going to add a little
more of this gray, this gray green over here. It seems that at the
joints of the legs, the colors get a little darker. So I want to sort
of pick up on that. I'm just getting slightly
darker or not, not really, really noticeably darker yet. We're just building up because it's wet. If I put any more
wet paint in it, it's going to it's all going
to start to blend together. So I kinda have to wait
for part of this to dry. The next color I
want to add in is, are these beautiful oranges and reds that you
see on the tips of the clause and on some of the smaller legs and
then a little bit on the ends of the shell. So I'm going to again
start with a light, a light wash of the orange because I'll add the more the dark later as well. There there are some wet areas so you may get a little of
that wet on wet happening. So just be mindful of that
if you don't want it to blend weight to put
that color in there. I'm okay with it right now. I kinda like the blending. It's like these happy accidents
that start to happen. And I kinda wanna, I wanna capture that and let the colors blend a little bit. Again, I'm just
working around adding a little bit and actually go
a little darker on that red. Adding a little bit
of it at the tip. We can darken that
later as well. So this section is focusing
on the light washes. This is a point in
time where we have to exercise some patients. Watercolor takes a
lot of patients. Now, I want to let all
these light layers dry. Because if I go
right in there now, everything is going to
start to blend together. And I don't want to lose the delicacy of all
these light washes. I sometimes say, I
want to make sure I get credit for all the washes
that I'm putting down. So now's a point in time
where I would take a break and maybe work on another
project or go walk my dog, or just find a pause so that
I can let these things dry. I can see that it's wet. One way that you can tell us if you tip your paper a little bit. I can see that this is
still shiny and reflective, which means it's still wet. So I'm gonna be patient, I'm going to let that dry and then I'm going to come back. And then the next section, we're going to paint the shell. And it's one of
my favorite parts of painting this crap.
So I'll see you then.
6. Updated! Paint the shell: Alright, here we go. We're gonna move on
to the next section, which is Section number six, which is paint the shell. So you may notice in the last section number
five light washes and in this section
paint the shell. My drawing and my references are slightly different
than in the beginning. Because I've revised
a little bit of this class and I
realized I had cut off a little bit of the painting when I filmed
some of these sections. And so I wanted to redo them. So I've got some new
references to share with you. And this part is slightly, it's the same techniques. It just the drawing maybe
slightly different. And you may notice that. But I wanted to make sure
that I could show you in full how that piece looks as I'm painting it and I'm always
looking to improve. So here we go, blue cloud crab, we're
going to work on the shelf. I want to get a lot of
drama in the shell. And what I'm gonna
do is I'm going to start with some mediums. We looked at our colors
that we mixed up. And I've got this beautiful olive green that I'm
going to work with. And then this really
dark green here. And those are the primary colors I'm going
to use in the shower with little accents of
the red happening on the tips of the shell. So what I wanna do, I'm wetting my brush. I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get
some of the olive going. There's a really deep, beautiful olive happening,
which I see as a medium tone. And I wanna get some depth. There we go. That's
a little bit darker. I just made it a
little bit darker. Now, I am going to work
with quite a bit of wet on wet in this
particular section. So if you remember, the wet on wet is basically
we're putting down wet paint. The paper is wet and we're going to add
more wet paint to it. So we're gonna get some
really nice blends. That being said, once you
get the paint down there, I want you to kinda
put the paint down and let it blend and
not keep working into it because sometimes
things get a little overworked. And I like to stop
before I think I'm done. And by that I mean, I want to get out of that area. Let the paint and the
water do its magic, do its thing without me kind of bossing
around and telling it what to do because I then run
the risk of overworking it. So I want to keep it fresh and I want the
watercolor to do its thing. So what I'm gonna
do, I'm gonna start, I have this green, you can see here on my
little test strip and love working on a test strip. It just helps me keep
track of my colors. I test it out before
I get to the paper. So I'm not completely surprised
about what's happening. Now. I just put this all
of color down so I know that this is
wet, but that's okay. That's what I wanted to
happen in this section. So I'm just letting this new dark green that
I'm putting in, I'm getting all of these little, there's all these little
points at the top, the shell. And I want to make sure that I'm capturing that those shapes. I'm leaving a little bit
of paper shining through. I'm not I'm not
covering up everything. And now I just want you to
remember these are my medium. This was a medium wash. So we're going to
come back in here. One usually I'll go back
and one additional time. Even as this is starting to dry, I may add a little
bit more color, but I'm primarily using the
olive and then this dark, really rich, dark green. I'm loading up my brush
with a little more green. Really, really focusing on
this wet on wet technique. Now, you're going to notice different drying
times and the paint moves a little bit more if
you let it dry a little longer than when it's
really wet initially. And as you paint, the more you work
with the watercolor, you'll learn those
drying times and how it affects the outcome
when you're painting. I also like to come in. I just have water
on my brush now. I just want this paint to
just move a little bit more, but I didn't want to get it too dark because I think at
the bottom of the shell, if you notice both
of the references that I've been using, that there is a lightness at
the bottom and then these dark sort of lobes of the
shell that come into play. So I don't want to get too
dark right now in these areas. I want to keep it a
little bit more medium. So sometimes I build
up the color a little quicker than other times. And this is a very, very wet application of paint. I was really pretty bold
when I went in there. And I'm liking, I'm
liking the effect. I do feel like I have
some hard edges though. And I know the shell is hard, but I don't necessarily want all these these edges
to be too sharp. So I'm just using little
bit of water on my brush. And I'm going back in there to just make it a little bit
smoother arm as well. If I feel like it's too
dark and uniform, again, I'm using that old paper
towel and just lifting out. I like a lot of variation, especially in this area. So I'm just lifting
out a little bit of that paint as well. I want to come in with the darker red right on
the tip of the shell. I can especially see
that in this reference, and I love the contrast or
the green with the red. So I just want to add
a little bit of that. And I liked the way that some of this red is going to
fuse with the green. I think it's going to create a really nice effect because they're like
contrast in colors. I think you're gonna get
a really pretty effect and there's a little bit of see, a little bit of orange down below where the legs
connect to the shell. So I'm going to add a little
bit down there as well. Let's say I don't want to cover up all the
lights that I first put down. So you want to be
aware of that too? That's when the
paper towel can be handy to lift back to
those late layers. I love all this olive
green I put in there. Actually going to add
a little bit more. On this side. In particular, in my reference I see a
lot of sort of yellowness. And because this is still wet, it's just going to blend
in there like beautifully. And I love that
about watercolor. One of my favorite
things about watercolor. So I'm thinking
about medium tones. This is not my darkest dark. I'm also going to take
our little break. I want what I've put
down so far to dry. Because if I keep putting wet
paint into those right now, It's all going to mush and blend and I'm going
to lose all of this beautiful layering and color blending that
I have going on. So I am going to pause the video at this moment and
then I'm gonna come back. And when I come back, I am going to start adding
the dark darks. I'm gonna do the eyes
and I'm gonna put some finishing touches on the shelf so I'll see
you in a minute. So now my medium layers have dried and now I
want to go back in and I want to get
the darks in there. So what I'm going to do first, I'm going to work with
this dark green on our swatch card over here. And I'm going to first put
some wet paint onto the paper. I still want to leave
a little bit of the color and those layers that I want to get
credit for underneath. So I'm not going to
cover up everything, but I'm just going to put
in a, some of that dark. I'm going to keep looking
at my photo reference here. What I see these dark
areas happening and there's these areas of light
and dark within the shell. Now what I wanna do
is I'm going to come back in with a little
bit of water on my brush because I want
to blend out these areas. I don't want there to
be really hard edges. So I just want to let the paint have somewhere to go and
something to flow into. Because a lot of watercolor is the blending of paint with water and the effects that you can get on the paper. It all various. But what I like to do is to give the paint
and the water and opportunity to work with each other and make some really
nice blended areas. So now I've just added a little more dark in place as all up along mostly along the top of the shell I see
a lot of dark. And so I want to put a nice
amount of that pigment up there because I love the play of the darks versus
the lights and watercolor. That's where a lot of the drama really comes from
in this medium. So I want to make sure
that I'm capturing that, but I don't want to
cover up everything that I worked so hard earlier on this
piece to capture. So I'm trying to keep
a balance between. Adding some new darks and then letting what's
their shine through. So now I've just got a little water on my brush
and I'm kind of coming back around some of
these darker areas because there's a little
bit of a hard edge. And I just want the
paint to be able to flow slightly more than it is. And again, I don't
want to overwork it. I talked to you about
that in the last video. I'm now going to come back. I have again that
yellowy green on my brush because I see a lot of color variation
in this photo, especially in the lower
part of the shell. There's this beautiful
yellow green That's blending with
the darker greens. So I want to make sure that I have those axons have
yellow, green in there. Then I just left a tiny bit. I want to make sure I have that interests of the
lights that I mentioned. The lights with
the darks a little more olive over particularly on this side and I'm just dabbing it and you could see I'm not using a lot of
paint, brush strokes. I'm letting the
paint and the water blend and do its thing. So I'm using a lot of wet on
wet technique for this part. I want these darks
just sort of blend in with the colors that
are already there. I will add some
detail in the next, in the next video. But now I'm really focusing
on the drama of the darks. That's what I really
find in the shell that make it such an
interesting thing to paint. And I want to now, I also want to put
them, we're gonna give him a little
more personality. We're going to
paint in these eyes and his eyes are really dark. I'm there up here, kind of close out to the legs. I really want to
get that dark green happening in that part
of the crab as well. And even while this is wet, I'm going to load up
more paint on my brush. And I mentioned before
about drying times. So now this has dried slightly. So now the paint and the water are going
to move a little slower. And you can see as I'm
just dropping in the dark, it's spreading but maybe
not as quickly as it was when I initially
started the darks. And again, that
whole all has to do with drying times and being patient and waiting before
you maybe put more color in. It's a great exercise to play with the different
effects you can get. But I don't want a nice areas. I didn't want the paint to
move and blend quite as much. So I waited till I put really, really, really
darkest dark in here. And that's how I like to work. I like to work with. I put my light
washes and first and then I build up to
my dark so you can really see the progression in the shell as we started
out with our lights, these really pale, soft, yellowy greens and then slowly built our way up to
the stronger colors. Like I said before, I don't want to overwork it. So I'm really happy with the blend that I'm
getting on the show. I loved the depth of color
that's happening up here, around the eyes and in the
top edges of the shell. So I'm going to
leave it at that. And I'm going to let this dry. And then we're gonna move on to the next section
where we're going to paint the legs and the clause.
7. Paint the Legs and Claws: All right. So our next step, we're gonna add some of the details and the layers into fi legs and the claws. We've been concentrating a lot on this main shell area, and we've got a lot of the nice darks in there, and now it's time to build up the colors in the other parts. And now that the center is dry, I didn't want to start on the claws because every time I would have touched the start green of the shell. It would have potentially bled out into the claws, and I didn't want that to happen. So now I want to get some of these some of the bright blues that are in these areas using some of the colors I mixed up. And then also, there's this really cool turquoise. But I like here. I think it's cobalt truck was light, and this is transparent turquoise. I want a bit of those two exit with that cobalt blue going to start over on the left hand side and then work my way sort of clockwise around the page. Then just looking for medium tones, toe ad, uh, maybe flipping between little um but I'm dry and then a little wet on wet. - So now I just started going back in the little bit of the orangey red. So I want you to just keep continuing on adding the the darker accents that you see in the claws and in the legs. I'm gonna add a little bit more of a deeper sort of chili turquoise down here and slowly building up those layers. You can let them dry in between. If you wanna wait cause usually for the detail, it's it's good to have it dry, the layers dry underneath, especially if you want it to be maybe more of a refined detail. It's better for it to be the wet on dry as opposed to a wet on wet. So I'm just going to continue to get some more darks in here, and you should do the same. And then the final step is I just want to add a little bit more of the really deep, the deepest, darkest, uh, teal into a couple areas on the shell. Not a lot of what a wet it first, and then I'm gonna just drop in a little bit of teal and then we are pretty much done. So this is exciting. So just keep looking at your reference and adding in those colors in your colorful legs, on the claws, and then we'll finish up the shell and we're almost done.
8. Add the darks: All right, so now I'm going to just add a little bit more dark onto the top edge of the shell and a little bit right here. So I wanted to blend with what's underneath on all of this is dry now. So I'm just gonna take a wet brush just with clear water, and I'm gonna wet it where I'm gonna put the blue ish green kind of color just up around here around the shell down in this area, the mid part of the shell. And we bet over here, and that's it. So now I know it's wet, because if I just took my head a little bit and look at the paper, it's still shiny. So that's one way that you can tell that the paper is still wet. So now I'm gonna take this really beautiful dark. Thiel will move my palate over to show you right here, and I mixed up this teal are then using it, Um, maybe in a slightly watery, more watery version. But this was when I mixed into go with ah, little bit of my green, a little bit of like sap green, but it's got a lot of it's got a lot of blue in it. So now I'm just gonna touch my brush to those areas where I just put the water and you could see that it's really bleeding and blending, which is what I wanted to dio that I am just going to touch it in there like this. And I am not going to go back into that area. Just gonna get the pain in there. And I'm gonna let the paint and the water do its thing, which is basically, it's gonna blend. Then it's gonna make really cool shapes, and I don't want to overwork it. And I don't wanna really do you too much more, you know, not gonna boss it around and tell it what to do and when. Let's do its thing. It's like the magic of the water and the water color. I'm just going to soften this edge a little bit with just a little plain water on my brush . So this is really, really, really wet. I want to just be careful about that and you're gonna need to let it dry. It's gonna take a while to dry about, you see, when it's all done so it's just a little more clear water. I just wanted to blend out into the green a little bit more and putting the Clearwater that they're just kind of gives the paint a place to go. So that's it. I'm not gonna even do any more on it. And I just want to add a tiny little bit of the same blue up into just a little bit of the clause. Because when I talked to you before about repeating colors and a composition just makes it more interesting. And I just put a tiny little highlight on the eyes. And so there is our blue claw crabs. He is all done. He needs to dry. So just leave them in a place where, you know, you don't want toe smudge it by putting a piece of paper on top of it or anything, and we're gonna let him dry, and then the next thing you're gonna do, I'm gonna come back for one more. Um, short little lesson, but we're gonna talk about signing it and then sharing it in the resource area. If you have any questions putting them down in the project area. But I will see you in a little bit. We're gonna let him dry
9. Final thoughts: so, thank you, everybody, for joining me. I want to show you my finished piece. Here's my blue claw crabs and I can't wait to see all of your pieces. And I hope you're gonna share them with me in the class projects. And you can even show a little work in progress there, too. And definitely follow me here on skill share if you like this class and it's a great learning platform and there's tons of artists sharing their work, and I hope to have more classes up there really soon. And if you want to see a little bit more about my studio and my daily painting life, then you can follow me over on Instagram. And I just want to say Thank you so much for showing up and just to give you a little pat on the back. Because a lot of times when we're trying a new medium or working in a class and watching a video when you're not getting live feedback, it's kind of hard to stay motivated. But I just want to say, if you really do love painting that the most important thing you could do is practice, you're gonna learn so much every day. I've taught myself so much about painting, Um, just doing that, just painting. And sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. But I just get back in my studio and I tried again on and it's just a joyful process, so I hope you enjoyed it, too, And thanks so much for tuning in.
Melissa Hyatt, Watercolor Artist and Beach lover
