Transcripts
1. Welcome!: [MUSIC] My painting journey
began many years ago, but it wasn't until I
moved all the way to sunny California that I
really found my groove, and fell in love with painting
flowers and landscapes. I believe one of
the best ways to get to know the place
that you live in is by getting
outside and learning about the local flora and fauna, and then painting those
inspiring images. My name is Hayley, and I'm an
oil painter from Kentucky, living in San Diego, California. I started coming to the San
Diego Botanical Garden, and I fell in love
with taking photos of the beautiful flowers and trees, and then coming home and
painting those photos. The textures, colors,
and patterns found in the natural world really create endless
opportunities for art. There's really beauty
all around us, you just have to
take a closer look. In this class, we will
be painting flowers in a loose impressionistic
style that really lends itself to creating patterns
that come to life. I'll teach you the
practical tips and knowledge that
I've learned along the way that will demystify oil painting and really
simplify the process, so you can feel confident
the entire way through. I'll tell you about
my four-step process that you can apply
to any painting. I'll talk about how I approach color mixing, brush strokes, and painting loose so that you create movement in your art. We'll go over the
basic materials that you need that
won't cost a fortune. I'll even show you why
you really don't need to focus on colors as
much as you may think, and how focusing on simple
values will produce the best results and even
prevent a few headaches. I think it's important to paint what's most truthful to you. Art is all about honesty and
telling your unique story. Painting the plants
and landscapes around me has really been my love
letter to California, and I can't wait for you
to create paintings that feel personal and
special to you as well. You don't need to travel far or even be an outdoorsy person, you can truly find beauty in your backyard or at
your local park. In this class, you can
follow along step by step with me and paint the
flowers that I'm painting, or you can use your own
reference photo and apply these same
principles and steps. I'll also give you
tips for finding amazing royalty-free
photos online, just in case you aren't able to go take your own
reference photos. Whether you're brand new to painting or a seasoned artist, this class will surely give
you some inspiration and practical knowledge to take with you on your
painting journey. I am so excited
that you're here, and I cannot wait to dive
into painting with you. Don't forget to follow
me on Skillshare and my other social
media platforms, so we can connect and
grow as artists together. I cannot wait to see what you
create. Let's get started.
2. Materials Needed: [MUSIC] Welcome to Lesson 1. We're going to go
over the materials that you'll need for this class. I'll be talking about some
of my favorite supplies, as well as some optional
items and substitutions. I will be teaching this
class in oil paint, but you can definitely
apply the colors and principles to any other
type of paint as well. The first material
that you'll need of course is something
to paint on. I'm going to be using this
Arches oil painting paper. It's really thick, nice
oil painting paper, but you can also
use regular canvas, wood panel, canvas board, or any other type of
oil painting paper. I also love the Canson
oil painting paper. It's really affordable
and works great. Make sure that whatever you're using is suitable for oil paint. The next material that
you'll need is a palette. Now, there are so many
types of palettes. There's wood palettes, glass palettes, palette paper. I'm going to be using palette
paper for this class. The next material
that you'll need is rags or paper towels. These are used to
wipe your brush off during and after painting, and they're just great for
the overall cleaning process. I got these rags at Target. They're just really cheap,
like 100 percent cotton. You can also cut
up old T-shirts. I do that all the time. That's a tip if you want to save money and use
what you already have. The next material is
optional and it is tape. I have a few different
types of tape. I have some Washi tape
that I got on Etsy and some frog tape that's
really good painter's tape, but it's not as cute looking. [LAUGHTER] Tape is
totally optional, but I love using it if I'm painting on paper
because you get those nice crisp lines and it also holds your paper down, and you can also use regular blue painter's tape if you have that lying around. The next material that
you'll need is brushes. I'm not personally a brush snob, so [LAUGHTER] I always say, use whatever brushes you have. I personally have a
few here that I like. I have a few sizes and shapes. I like to have a bigger
brush and then a smaller brush and a long, thin brush. I will say that the farther you get into
your art journey, you'll probably want to buy a little bit better quality
brushes just because they fall apart really
easily when they're cheap. But even cheap brushes can
work really well sometimes. Actually, another tip is using makeup brushes. A
lot of people do that. The ones that I'm using are
all the Princeton brand. I think they're found at most art stores and I really like them and
they're pretty affordable. One that we'll be using
a lot in this class is this round smaller brush. I love it for flower shapes. The flat and square brushes
give a more angled line. I really like the round
brushes for shading and flowers and a
very organic feeling. I definitely recommend getting a small round brush if you can. Another really important tool
to have is a palette knife. It's not necessary, but
it's highly recommended. You could use a paintbrush but the thing with a
paintbrush is it's very hard to clean it
well in between mixing. With a palette knife
you can mix a color, wipe it off, mix another
color, wipe it off, and you can do that really
quickly and everything stays clean and your colors don't get muddy because
they don't mix. If you use a paint brush, the paint will really
stay in the brushes and then it'll be hard to
move to another color. With palette knives,
you want to make sure that they are very bendy. That means it's a
good palette knife. I think the cheaper ones
actually are very stiff. You would think that that means it's better, but it's not. You want the bendable
ones so that you can really mix your colors well. During the color mixing step, we will use a palette knife a lot to mix all of our colors, and then after that we won't use it at all during the
painting process, we'll just use brushes. Another material
that you'll need is an oil medium and a
jar to put it in. I'm using safflower
oil and I have this Trader Joe's mustard
jar [LAUGHTER] that I use. I just save small jars from the grocery store to
use with my mediums. The purpose of an oil
medium is to loosen up your paint and make it easier to spread around the canvas. I like safflower oil because
it's non-toxic and it's actually less yellowing than other oils such as linseed oil, but those are totally
fine to use as well. I used them for a long time. You may hear people
using Gamsol, which is a paint thinner, and you can definitely
use that if you like. I personally don't
use solvents anymore. I like to just stick
with the non-toxic oil, so I use safflower oil, but you can use
whatever works for you. Then you also want to
have something to clean your brushes with at
the end of painting. I actually use mineral oil, that is a non-drying oil, which means you don't want
to mix it with your paint, but you can use it for cleaning. Safflower oil is a drying oil, mineral oil is a non-drying oil. You can also use Gamsol to clean your paint brushes or
just Dawn soap and water. There's lots of different
options out there. There's a pink soap
and different things. Just make sure you have
an oil medium to paint with and then something to clean your brushes
with at the end. I'll be using safflower
oil and mineral oil. The last and most
important material that you'll need is paint, the star of the show. What colors should you use? I'm going to list out the colors that I'll be
using for this class, but I want you to know that
some of these are optional. For example, I have
an orange color that's already in the tube, but you can also
just mix red and yellow if you have that instead. If you want to buy less colors and just have the
primary colors, red, blue, yellow, and white or something, that is totally fine and
you can just mix a lot of shades with
those main colors. I personally don't like
to mix a million colors, so I do like to buy the tubes
of already pre-made shades. That's what I'm doing,
but you can definitely get the standard colors
if you prefer that. Some colors you
can't actually mix. There's some colors in a
tube that are so radiant and vibrant that you can't
really mix to get that shade. It's a more lab-made a color. [LAUGHTER] For example,
even my orange hue that I have and the cadmium green, like these really bright colors. I think those are just fun to buy because you can't
really mix them, but they're not necessary. You can always just mix a shade of green or
a shade of orange. It doesn't have to match
my shade perfectly. Feel free to get the
colors that I'm using or substitute what
you don't have, and just follow along
as best you can. When I'm using a blue,
you use your blue. When I'm using a pink,
you use your pink. I'm also a firm believer that values are much more
important than actual colors. Your lights, your
mediums, your darks, and the ratio of those lights, medium, darks is actually
more important than the shade or colors in between. We'll talk more
about that later. I'll tell you all about values and I'll tell you
about temperature. When you're mixing, you want
to try to keep cool tones with cool tones and then warm tones with warm
tones when you're mixing. We'll talk more
about that later, but it is good to
have a variety of warm and cool colors
in your palette. That's why I have a mix here. [MUSIC]
3. Mixing Your Paint: [MUSIC] Welcome to the
color mixing lesson. In this lesson, we
will be creating our unique palette of colors
to use for this painting. Here are the colors and
materials we'll be using. [MUSIC] A palette knife, make sure it's bendy and pallet paper or any type of palette
that suits oil paint. First off, we're going to
mix equal parts magenta and Naples yellow to get a nice
rich mauve pink color. As a side note, I'm not going in
any special order when mixing these colors. I just felt like
starting with pink. Also, it can be
helpful if you group your warms and cools
together on your palette. [MUSIC] Always clean
your palette knife well before moving on
to the next color. Next we have cadmium orange, a small bit of burnt sienna, and a large dollop
of titanium white. We will mix that to get an
Earthy beige orange tone. [MUSIC] Next we have equal parts, cadmium red light,
Naples yellow, and lemon yellow hue. We'll mix those to create
a bright salmon color. [MUSIC] Then I will also
mix a tiny bit of that salmon color with titanium
white for a light pink. [MUSIC] Next we have equal parts permanent
green light, ultramarine blue, and Naples
yellow to get a lovely teal. [MUSIC] As before, we'll add a
tiny bit of the teal to titanium white for
a light teal color. I do this a lot actually, where I'll have a color I like and then I'll mix a little bit with titanium white for a
lighter version of that color. This way I have a couple
options when I'm painting and I can shade really easily
as well within that color. This also ensures
that I have lots of different cools and warms and
lights and darks as well. Next we'll mix equal parts
permanent green light, permanent rose, and phthalo blue for a beautiful deep blue. [MUSIC] We'll also create a lighter
version of this blue color, which I think turned
out stunning. [MUSIC] Next we have
the same three colors, phthalo blue, permanent rose, and permanent green light. But we do an extra squeeze of
the permanent green light. [MUSIC] We'll throw in a little extra
permanent rose as well. That will give us a nice
midnight teal green color. [MUSIC] Next we'll mix
cadmium red light, phthalo blue, permanent green
light, and titanium white. [MUSIC] Some extra cadmium red
light and titanium white to get an
overcast gray color, one of my favorite
colors on the palette. [MUSIC] Now we're going to do
cadmium red light, cerulean blue, and a good
amount of titanium white. [MUSIC] We'll add a little
extra cerulean blue. This creates a
similar gray color as the one we mixed last, but this one is brighter, lighter, and a
little more purple. You may be thinking, why are some of these
colors similar? Well, I just like to
have different options. If I like a color combination, I will try it a few different
ways and give myself various tones and shades and temperatures to choose
from when I'm painting. Next, we will mix
permanent green light, ultramarine blue, two squeezes of Naples
yellow and titanium white [MUSIC] with a little more Naples yellow for a sweet moss green. Lastly we have burnt
sienna, cadmium green, lemon yellow hue, Naples yellow, and titanium white all
straight out of the tube. I don't use very many colors
right out of the tube. But over time I've learned that I really like having
a little extra of these specific colors
around. That's it. We now have this
gorgeous assortment of cool and warm tones, variations of the rainbow to choose from when
we're painting. Using your unique
colors over time will help you to develop your
signature style as well. This is just how I
create my palette, but there are a million
and a half ways to approach color mixing
and palette creation. You can copy my
exact palette here, or you can create
your own colors and still follow along with me, or you can use colors straight out of the
tube if you want. Play around and see
what you resonate with. Now let's get to painting.
4. Layer 1: Flat Shapes & Layouts: [MUSIC] Welcome to Layer One. This first lesson
is going to be all about establishing our layout, main shapes, and proportions. The brush we'll be using
first is a small round brush, but we'll also use a few other brushes throughout
the painting. The round brush is amazing
for organic shapes, so it works really well with
the flowers and leaves. The first colors we're going
to mix our burnt sienna, pink, and orange to get a
nice rusty brown color. We're going to be painting
the flower centers first. This will really
help us establish a map of where things
will be in the painting, and it's just an easy, simple place to start. With the flower centers, you don't need a perfect circle. You can do ovals and make
them look irregular, that way they look a
little bit more natural. We're just looking at the
photo and finding where the flowers are and we're
just painting the centers. It's pretty simple so far. If you do want to
paint along with me and use the same
photo, that's great. I'll have the file
available for download, so you don't have to just look at the small one on my screen. Perfect. We have our map
of our flower centers now and we're going to do
the yellow petals next. I'm staying with the round
brush and I'm grabbing some Naples yellow
and lemon yellow hue and mixing those for
a nice muted yellow. We'll just start
adding the petals while looking at our photo. One thing with petals, is you do want to make sure
they're going and various directions and they're
drooping around, like you'll see in the photo. You don't want
them too straight, or stiff, or all going
in the same direction. You want to feel like they're moving and that they're alive. Make sure to keep a loose
at grip on your brush and create different links
for the petals as well. You can have some
short, some long. I think this gives
a really nice look. Just a note that I have
sped up this video, just so it's not super long, but definitely feel free to
change the playback speed, so it's a bit
slower if you want, or you can just pause
whenever you need to. For the smaller flowers, I just do like a
circle around them, so they're like little
donut flowers almost. [MUSIC]
5. Layer 1. Flat Shapes & Layouts (Part 2): [MUSIC] We're going
to switch gears. I just wash off
my round brush in safflower oil and
I'm now grabbing some light blue color and we're going to add some
of the leaf shapes. I'm basically just looking for stand-out shapes
in the photo. I'm looking for the
largest leaves that I see. The ones that really stand out. There are so many
leaves in this photo, but I'm just going to add the
prominent shapes for now. Then we'll build up the smaller
details later as we go. But we don't want to
add too much yet. I'm also just winging it here. Having fun glancing at my
photo every few seconds, but also just placing leaves
wherever I want them to be, wherever I think they
are in the photo, but not being too
precious with it. I think when you try
to be too precious and get every detail
right in the photo, it's very stressful
and I like to just let that go
and just have fun. Again, we're not
doing realism here. I'm not going for perfect
copying of the photo. I'm really going
for more of like an impressionism
type of painting, stylistic and I think there's a lot of freedom in
that because you're not attached to
the photo and you can add things as you wish. That's why you'll
also notice that my colors are not realistic. The leaves are actually
pretty blue in the photo, but they're not the light blue
that I'm painting exactly. I'm definitely not
copying exactly. I'm just going with
what feels good, what looks good to me. For the leaves, I'm also
making sure they're different sizes and going
in different directions. I am in love with this
blue and yellow combo. What do you think about it? I just think they look
so nice together, especially with the red center. For the leaves, I
see some shapes that are a half-moon shape, there are some leaves
that are shorter. I'm just painting a few
different types of shapes. It's also helpful to
move around your Canvas. You really don't want to just
get stuck in one corner. You want to keep moving,
keep things flowing. That's how you're going to get a very unified painting because if we get stuck
in one corner then, it's easy to get exhausted after that because
you've only finished one part of the painting and also the rest of the
painting may look different. I just try to keep things
moving and make sure that all corners of the painting
have similar elements. I also grabbed my skinny
long brush to just mix it up and do some
more refined details. I decided to grab some
of my minty green color, which I think will look
really nice with the blue and we're just going
to keep doing leaves, but just like a
different color of leaf. Again, I'm just looking
for a large shapes that stand out and also
half making them up. Here's a tip that I really like. I just find a shape that I like. You'll see this leaf
shape that I'm doing. I don't focus on the
photo like so so much. I have my shape that I like and I just keep
repeating that, but I'll make it skinnier
or longer or wonky looking. I find shapes that I really
like to do and they're easy and I just repeat it
in different versions. That way I'm not
looking at the photo so often just obsessing over it. I had my few shapes and
I rotate them around. That is also how you're going to get more of like a
patterned a look. I've become obsessed with creating patterns
in my painting. When you repeat shapes
often and colors as well, all around your painting, you really do get
that wallpaper look, but I've really
been enjoying that. If you like that, look too, then this is the place to be. We're getting close to being done with this first
layer, so exciting. I'm really looking forward
to seeing you guys as photos if you paint this. You can see that this first layer is
really not too crowded. We don't want to
add too much yet because we want to
keep building slowly. If we add too much right now, then it's going to just start forming like a ball of color. We really want that whitespace in the background
to shine through. Of course, it's a lot easier to add than it is to take away. But actually, with painting, it's pretty easy to take away. You just have to paint over it, but sometimes you have
to let it dry first. It's easier just to go slower and that
way you don't have to do too much editing. I always feel so
much better after the first layer because I just
know where everything is, starting is the hardest part. This was so much fun. I hope you're loving
the painting so far. Let's move on to layer number 2.
6. Layer 2. Dark Values: Welcome to layer two. This second layer is going to be focused all around
the dark values. Looking at my photo, the darkest spots
are these dark teal, and brown shadows
in the background. So I'm going to grab my
dark teal color first. I'm using my longer
skinnier brush. The end is super thin
and it's perfect for sharper details and
crisp lines but again, use any brush that you have
on hand and as before, I'm glancing at the
photo while adding in dark lines
wherever I see them. I'm not obsessing about it
if it's perfect or anything. I'm just looking, painting, looking, painting. I'm grabbing my small round
brush for a minute here, but you'll see that I do
switch back as I realize that the long-thin brush worked
best for these lines. I also grabbed some of my dark navy blue color and alternate that
with the dark teal. In the intro when I
mentioned that focusing less on colors and more on
values is really helpful, this is really where
this principle starts to come into play. It doesn't necessarily matter what color you use
for your darks, as long as you
have a dark value, where the dark value
is supposed to be, and same with the light values. If you see a light area, it doesn't necessarily
need to be that exact color like
white or yellow. It can be a light
blue or a light pink. If your values all match up, like the darks and the
lights and the mid-tones, you're going to be
successful like your painting is most
likely going to look good. Colors are important.
Don't get me wrong. They're very important. But, I just think that
values are extremely important and you don't want to have too many darks
or too many lights. So whenever you
see a dark value, just grab the dark
color that you like. It doesn't necessarily
need to match. It's more fun in
my opinion if you use a purple where it's
supposed to be black. I think that's fun
because you get more of surrealistic or
impressionistic painting. Basically, you can have the
best colors in the world but if your values
ratio is looking off, then the painting
probably won't look right versus if your values are all
proportional to each other, then you can have any color and it'll
probably still look decent. I like to squint my eyes a lot and just paint
wherever I see, like dark lines or dots. You'll see that I actually put
dark lines on the edges of a lot of the leaves and in-between some of
the flower petals. That's what I saw in my photo, and it gives a nice shadow
next to the lighter colors. This is another example
of finding a shape or a movement that you like
and just running with it. If I see that there's a few shadows somewhere
in between the petals, then I'll just look
away from the photo and just go ahead and do that
on all of the flowers. I don't necessarily
need to know that it's perfect matching the photo
but I like that shape, I like where it's placed. I'll go ahead and do
it for everybody. Again, we're going to get
that pattern to look. We're just about
done with layer two. This was a shorter lesson
because we don't have a ton of dark
colors in my photo, but we will add a few more
darker details later. But for now, these were
the main dark areas. Let's go ahead and move
on to layer three. The next lesson will be
all about the mid-tones. [MUSIC]
7. Layer 3. Mid Tones: [MUSIC] Welcome to Layer 3, this third layer is going to
be all about the mid tones. We're going to grab
some of my darker pink and lighter pink and
mix those together. Mid tones are exactly what the name suggests,
the middle values. Not too light, not too
dark, the in-between. There are a lot of
these small details in the background of my
photo, there are browns, oranges, and it's basically just dirt and leaves
in the photo, so that's what I'm
doing with the pink. I'm not trying to match
the colors perfectly, I just chose pink
because it looks nice against the yellows and
blues that I already have. But as long as it's a mid tone, it could be a brown or orange, or whatever you want it
to be, that also works. I'm just going to add
those small details wherever I see
them in the photo, and always keeping in mind to move around the Canvas
as much as possible. When you keep moving around
the Canvas you also get that continuity and no areas become stagnant or overdone, and also keeps your motivation
high because every part of the Canvas will have something laid down and nothing
will be blank, so it really does feel like the painting goes a
lot faster that way, and you may realize
that you need a lot less details
than you think. Now I'm switching to my small round brush
and I'm just grabbing some of my bright orange
hue with some lemon yellow, and I'm going to add that color to all of the petals basically. It's like a shadow I
guess on the photo. You'll actually see
that the petals have multiple colors on them in the photo and they get more orange towards the
center of the flower. I just love this orange
color with the yellow, I just think it looks so nice. I'm going to wash my brush
and I'm going to grab some of this darker
gray purple color, and add that to the
centers of the flowers. You'll see in the photo
there is actually a gray color on the
flowers centers, so that's where I
got the color from. I really love how it
contrasted against the pink brown color that we
painted in the beginning. Now I'm grabbing some of this dark blue color to add
to the sides of the leaves, this is going to
create some depth to those flat leaves and just give them some dimension and
bring them to life. You'll see again that my ways of creating patterns is
coming into play here. With the leaves, I'm
outlining one side of the leaves and then
just repeating that movement on
the other leaves. After I feel pretty good about the blue edges of the leaves, I'm going to wipe my brush off and just start to
blend the light and dark blues together to
get rid of those harsh lines. With blending, it's
always helpful to use a dry brush in my opinion, so I just wipe my brush off on the towel and
get it nice and dry,. That way if you have excess paint on the brush
while you're blending, it just gets messy. I'm grabbing a bit of
this mint green color to add to leaves as well, so they aren't just plain blue, I'm just bringing more
colors into the mix [MUSIC].
8. Layer 3. Mid Tones (Part 2): [MUSIC] Next we're going in with my purple gray color to add some details
to the background. You'll see in the dark
areas of the photo, there are some purple hues. I think it's mostly like
the dirt in the photo. We'll add that purple
color to the areas where we painted the dark
teal color earlier. I'm still not really
blending much yet, mostly just sticking with lines, flat shapes, and
blocks of color. But the more layers that we add, the more the colors actually
get blended on their own. That's how you get more of
an impressionistic look as well but we will blend a
little bit here and there. Next I'm going to take some of that bright lime
green color and mix it with a little bit of the yellows with a
large flat brush. I'm going to paint some of those bright small tiny leaves in the top right especially, they almost look like little
butterflies in my photo. I'm just doing small
wispy motions. I'm adding that color all
over and I'm moving around also because there are some light green leaves
scattered around the photo. Then I'm going to grab a little bit of that
light blue color just on the same brush and
I'm going to add some small details
in the white spaces. I just want to close in on those areas, tie
everything together, look for gaps in the
painting and I'm just doing a wispy
lines again all around. Next I will grab my
small round brush and get a little orange and naples yellow and just
start blending out those petals that have the
orange and yellow on them. I'm blending so that the
petals are smoother and have a gradient feel to them. I don't really have a
blending technique, I just go over the edges where
the colors meet until they start to meld together [MUSIC].
9. Layer 4. Light Values & Final Details: Welcome to layer 4. This fourth and
final layer is all about painting the
lightest colors, the details, and really
finalizing everything. We're going to be tying the
whole painting together and just adding all of the
finishing touches. I'm grabbing my skinny
brush and some of the light orange beige color to add some of the background
details similar as before. There are lots of small dots
in the right-hand corner, so I'm focusing there. [MUSIC] Then I'll grab some light pink and just keep doing the same. Lots of these beige
and pink shapes on the right side of the photo, so that's where I'm
mostly putting them. [MUSIC] I'm switching back to my purple-gray to fill in
some of these white areas. [MUSIC] If you feel like you're
lost or overwhelmed, definitely slow down the video or pause as often as you need. I know I have to do that a
lot when I'm watching videos. I just want to make
it known that you can go at whatever
speed you want to. [MUSIC] I'm grabbing some of the darker gray
purple color to fill in some of these
bottom right gaps. [MUSIC] Also grabbing some light blue to fill in more gaps. I'm really just
trying to get rid of the blank white space right now and just start pulling the painting together to
make it look like one moving unit essentially. I'm seeing some of these
emerald green shadows beneath the flower petals, so I'm adding some of my
minty green color in between the petals and around the
petals for a nice shadow. [MUSIC] I'm grabbing some of
the darker blue to fill in some gaps on the
left bottom area. I mentioned this earlier, but it is helpful if
you squint your eyes once in a while or if you
stand back from your painting. I do that a lot. I'll walk across the room and then
look at my painting. Sometimes you'll
notice immediately what you're painting needs or what you don't like about it or what
you love about it. Another tip that's helpful
is you can take a photo of your painting with your phone and then look at it
through your phone screen. For some reason that also
does the same trick. It just boils the details down so that you can see
it from a bird's eye view. You can also look at your
color palette and say, what colors have
I not been using? What can I do with this
purple or this green? Then you can look
at your photo and paint where you see
that color only. These are just
tricks for if you're feeling stuck or not
sure what to do next. I'm still going around
with the blue and just filling in gaps and
making little marks. [MUSIC] I grab some of my pink and I see these small pink dots in the
background of the photo, so I'm moving around
to match those colors. Basically just stippling my skinny brush
over random areas. It's actually quite therapeutic. It's part of that pattern-making that
I mentioned earlier, I just get in the zone when
I start repeating shapes, and it's almost like doing
a puzzle or something, you don't have to think
too much, which I like. I'm seeing the dots in the
top left, middle right, bottom left, top right,
basically all over. Next, I'm going to take
my small round brush with some light mint color. I just want to add
more dimension to our petals and some
varying colors. I'm adding a highlight of sorts with that
light mint color. I'm adding some to the ends of the leaves as well
as along the edges. This color isn't actually
something on the photo. This is again where values
come in over colors. Just something that I
felt I wanted to add. Some of the petals have
lighter edges as you'll see. As long as our color is light, it doesn't need to
be light yellow, it can be light pink
or light green. I like doing other
colors sometimes, so it's just a little
more interesting. I'm mixing some of the
orange and white and adding that next to the
light mint highlight, I'm just building out
more at layers here. [MUSIC].
10. Layer 4. Light Values & Final Details (Part 2): [MUSIC] Now we're back to the thin brush and I grabbed
some Naples yellow and I'm just blending those
petal colors a little more. Now I'm just carving
out the petals a bit more as they got of gloss
with the other colors. So I wanted just to find the
outline of the flower petals again so that the flowers
will continue to stand out. [MUSIC] Going back to the
smaller round brush, and I'm grabbing some orange and white to add more to the petals. I did this just because I prefer the orange
over the yellow, so I wanted to have
more of that color. [MUSIC] I'm grabbing my small
flat brush and some pink, and we're going to
add some more color to the flower centers. Pink isn't something in the
photo that you'll find, but it was just an
intuitive decision and I just wanted
to add more color. I'm wiping my round brush off and grabbing some
light pink now and I'm just going to
add a brushstroke to the flower centers
for more dimension. [MUSIC] Then I'm grabbing a little orange and
going over the centers again to blend a bit more
and just soften them up. [MUSIC] You'll see that the flower centers have a lot
of small dots in texture, so I wiped my brush off
and I'm grabbing some dark blue and I'm just going to
stipple along the edges. [MUSIC] Then I realize that the skinny brush is actually
going to work better, so I'm switching to that and
grabbing some teal as well. [MUSIC] I'm going to
grab my round brush again and grab some white and add that to the
edges of the petals. At this point, I'm
just polishing, blending, painting intuitively, and just getting
lost in the brushes. Adding those final steps. [MUSIC] I'm adding some random colors to the background to
fill in any white spaces and just blending any
harsh lines I see. [MUSIC] Sometimes you'll
also notice that your painting is too
cool or too warm, meaning too many bluish shades or too many orangey shades. So you may at some point think, I need more oranges and pinks or I need more
purples and blues. So it's good to step back
or squint your eyes and just get that bird's eye view
to see what you're missing. It's really easy to get
sucked into the details when you're up close to your
painting for too long. [MUSIC] I'm also defining
the petals as well. [MUSIC].
11. Layer 4. Light Values & Final Details (Part 3): [MUSIC] I added some orange to the
leaves from my color. Opposites tend to
look great together. So if you have a blue leaf, the opposite color on the
color wheel is orange, so that will look really
nice next to blue. You don't necessarily
want to blend them unless you want a
dull earthier color, but next to each other, on top of each other looks
gorgeous, in my opinion. One of the last steps is to
add some lines to create more movement and simulate
the flower stems. You can see a bunch of them
going wild in the photo. I take my long skinny
brush and I'm dipping it into the safflower
oil to soak it. This is important. You
do not want a dry brush. Then I'm grabbing some green and white and mixing that together. I'm just going to
make long lines where I see them in the photo. You want to be confident
here with your hand motion, you don't want to go slow
or stop halfway through. You just got to
trust and go fast. It's one of the few times in a painting that is a
little bit harder to fix. It's definitely possible to fix anything but it's difficult with lines like this because they're going on top of the painting. Just go for it once you know where you want
to place them. This really ties everything
together nicely, and again, just creates that
flowing feeling of everything tangled
together in the forest. [MUSIC] I'm adding some
more pink dots to the background as I
felt there really wasn't enough pink and I wanted to balance all the
patches of green. The opposite color
of green is red, so pink, will do
the same effect. Plus some small stippling gives more dimension next to the
larger objects and shapes. [MUSIC] Now I'm just looking for anything that needs
to be corrected. I thought this flower petal was looking a bit drab and muddy so I opted to add some light pink to
brighten it up a bit. Then I'm doctoring it
with little orange and white just until I feel
like it looks okay. Look for anywhere in your
painting that feels too dark or too light
and just fix it. I felt this petal looked much
better after those changes. [MUSIC] Lastly, I grabbed some
burnt sienna and orange, and I'm going around
the flower centers to add a dark shadow, something like this
technically should be in the darkest values
video but again, the process is not
fully linear and you're going to be bouncing around
and fixing and adding, so don't get hung up
on the four steps. It's more of a
guide than a Bible. [MUSIC] Oh my gosh, we are finished. I can't believe it. It's
time to peel off our paint, celebrate, and be so proud of the new painting
that we've created. Finishing a painting is
really the best part of painting and you should feel so accomplished after
you complete this. Peeling the tape off
is so fun because you get to look at your
clean, crisp edges. I cannot wait to see
your finished paintings, whether you used my photo
or a different photo, and I really hope you enjoyed this painting lesson and that you gained some
tips and knowledge. Thank you for painting with me. Don't forget to check out the next few lessons in this class so we can go
over our final thoughts, the project, and any
other closing details. [MUSIC] Thank you so much
for painting with me. [MUSIC]
12. Project: [MUSIC] Let's talk about
the project for this class. Your assignment is
to paint a loose, colorful, impressionistic
style painting. You can either use
the same photo that I showed you in this
class and follow along step by step and upload that
painting as your project or you can get outside and take your own reference photo
of a beautiful plant, flower, or landscape
that you see around you. You can apply the
same layers, steps, and colors that I
showed you to paint your own loose, impressionistic
style painting. When you're finished with
your nature painting, please upload it to
the project gallery. I cannot wait to see it. When you're taking
photos of your work, you can just use your phone. I like to go outside
and use the shade. That will give you
really great lighting so you can upload your
finished painting, either the same one that I
went through in this class or another impressionistic
style nature painting that you created. I am so looking
forward to seeing your paintings and I cannot
wait to check them out.
13. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] Thank you so much for
going through this class, I hope you learned
something new and had a great time painting
flowers with me, anytime you sit down to
practice your craft, you are progressing
and learning. You should really be proud
of yourself that you invested the time into
your painting practice. I love painting in this
style and allowing the world around me to
come alive in my artwork. I truly hope you feel the
same after this class, and I hope you gained
some real-world tips and hacks that will serve you well in your painting journey ahead. Make sure to upload your painting photos to
the project gallery, I honestly cannot
wait to see them, thank you so much for
joining me and I really hope to see you in another
class soon. Bye.
Hayley Hawkins
