Transcripts
1. Introduction: I've been using Watercolor and inks in many of my sketchbook pieces for years. Hi, I'm [inaudible] , and this sketchbook is my 21st sketchbook, which I have dedicated specially to wild flowers, which has allowed me to explore ways of adding more depths and textural interest in my botanicals. My florals have appeared on cards, wrapping paper, gift bags, and fabric. This class has a relaxed exploration of expressive florals laid down in Watercolor with essential inky details on top. As a top teacher here, on Skillshare, many students have wondered how I seemingly achieve effortless Watercolor florals which stay vibrant and fresh, rather than to tie to overworked. But how do we go about doing this? In this class, I will share insights and best practices for producing expressive Watercolors, including clearing the headspace for our flowering florals. By using playful exercises, we can shift our attention from the need to portray accurate depictions and instead simplifying it down to capture the essence of your flower. As a recovering perfectionist, creating artworks in Watercolor and ink appeals to my personal taste and capabilities as it allows me to have the balance between the carefree side of me and the need for a few details. The guiding principles I present, like shape, value and color mixing tips can be applied easily to any subject matter you decide to paint and still achieve the same spontaneous results. Big brushes and vibrant colors can take center stage in this approach, along with boulder contrast and descriptive inclines. There are three full length demonstrations in which I take you through my entire process. Whether you're just starting out with Watercolors or are well-versed in this medium, I will present a really unique and intuitive way of working that will produce in enchanting wildflower depictions.
2. Your Project: Thank you so much for joining me. I've really tried to break this course down into easy to manage segments. As I feel, if I asked you to dive straight into painting, a looser floral style, there would be just too much frustration and anxiety, and you really wouldn't enjoy the practice as much, and I really want you to enjoy this fully. As such, I want to introduce some related warm-up exercises to gently ease and guide you into this technique. This should further your watercolor practice for any subject matter, not just florals. Please note, although this class uses the wet-on-wet technique, it's not specifically about mixing watercolors, or color theory. Some of the spot light will be on achieving, a loosen expressive look, by shifting our attitudes towards how a floral should look. The rest will be an overview of how your watercolors behave under slightly different conditions, like variations in pigment, more to load on the brush, even down to the paper you use. Your project is to use watercolor and ink techniques, outlined in this class, to depict a wildflower, or flower of your choice, ideally, one you picked yourself. You use the projects and resources tab, to upload your project. I would love to see your warm up exercises, the shape, value, and ink studies, your main floral, and a short overview of your thoughts on the process, with highlights, and some lessons learned. It's okay to be honest, I'm not here to judge, I really want to support you. You can post your progress in stages if you want, and I'll try my best, to give feedback before you embark on the color version, or versions. Please post, as many florals as you'd like. On the right just here, is the project resources. I have downloadable PDFs, including the leaf shapes to try for the color mixing warm up exercise, a list of water colored pigments I use in this class, my materials list, including all the nibs and watercolor papers. These documents will be in the resources section here, along with links to other SkillShare classes that I mentioned throughout this class. If you would like to share the sketches that you create, then please use #ohnmarskillshare, so I can see your progress on Instagram. However, I do urge you to post within this classroom for a full feedback from me.
3. Materials Needed: Round brushes are pretty versatile and the are probably the most commonly used brush. I've always painted with these, but while I was going through this particular sketchbook, I did start to use some different brushes. You absolutely don't need to have any of the brushes that I'm going to show you next. This was a Chinese-style brush that I have had in my collection for a number of years and I had never used it and I really wanted to just give things a go really. If I wet it, you will see that it goes into a lovely point. I started researching some more and as I was after lots of water load, I found out that these quill brushes could be very valuable for me. Again, they come in a variety of sizes and I would say this number zero as they have in the Jackson's series, is equivalent to the Chinese brush, which I would say is equivalent to approximately a number 12. These are made with a mixture of fibers and because it's so thick, it can hold a lot of water. I will explain these a lot more in a later video. One last point is please don't think that you have to go out and buy quill brushes. This was just something that I wanted to play around with and I found that I liked them. If you don't have them a round brush is perfectly fine. You will also need at least a student quality watercolor set. It looks very basic but its got two yellows, two reds, two blues and two greens, two browns, and this is perfectly adequate for what we're going to be doing today. I use Winsor and Newton pan set, of course, if you're using tubes of watercolor, that's absolutely fine. I keep it pretty messy and this year I couldn't help myself and I bought some extra little pans. I get excited by things like that. What else we will need is bog standard printer paper, which we'll use for the warm ups. I don't want you to be precious about the warm ups, I just want you to produce as many as possible and if you think you've made a mistake, just grab another sheet of paper. For some of the watercolor practice, you can use heavyweight cartridge paper if you don't want more expensive watercolor paper. I've got a variety of watercolor papers that I'll be using, Winsor and Newton, the Hahnemuhle and you'll see that most of these are 300 GSM or 140 pounds. For one of the demos, I'll be using my Moleskine, which is a 200 GSM paper, but I find it's quite adequate for my needs. You can use a variety of papers, you can just use your sketchbook it's up to you. If you have pen holders, that will be great. I've got a variety here and of course, you'll be needing nibs. I keep mine in this little metal container. I've got a whole variety of nibs because I'm a little bit obsessed with them. This is the Kuretake holder, and this is the Brause nib. You'll find that most holders will take most nibs. That one goes there and this is actually a mapping pen. I'm going to stick in this Curtisward holder. There we go. I promised when we get to the inking section of the class, I will explain how to use these in a lot more detail. You can actually buy these as kids like this. I bought this for my daughter because she's always using my stuff and I think she should get her own. You'll need some ink. I have a variety, I have got acrylic ink from dollar roundly. My favorite one is this peak brown one from Winsor and Newton. If you don't have pen and ink, you can use a fountain pen or fine liners. This is just a book standard fountain pen I use for urban sketching. It won't give you quite a variety of line, but it's a good alternative and this is just the uniball. This is the pigma micron. These will be in the class resources section. A few final items worth having is just some kitchen roll for dabbing your brush clean or dry and also a timer which we will need for some of the warm ups.
4. Why WILD flowers ?: Some of you may remember my class create freely with income watercolor which had fun projects based on simple fruit and vegetables. I've explored this technique frequently in the intervening years, so I'm able to now present a much more in-depth look at the fundamentals and the mindset of this approach. It is an evolving style for me and one that I've been practicing over several years. In spring 2020, I found I could easily adapt this method to depict wild flowers, the type of flowers I adore the most. My relationship with wild flowers goes back a long way, often seeing them when I would be walking to and from school as a young girl. They would be emerging from old railway bridges with poppies and grasses growing along the roadside or in the shady wooded areas that were shortcuts to my school. I didn't know their names at the time, I just knew that I loved the odd angles that they grew at, especially since at the time we didn't have a garden of our own. This class was filmed during the COVID lock down of spring 2020. I would take long, socially distanced walks with my daughter in the spring sunshine and we would note all the blooms, and the blossoms, and eggshells, and bees that were all part of that season. It was part of her home learning as well. These daily outings awakened my curiosity and this revival compelled me to start chronicling the wild flowers that we saw. In some ways, I think it was a reaction to the lock down we were under. Using that freedom of movement that we were allowed to explore. Also knowing that it was always safe to explore within my sketchbook. As oftentimes in the past, I would retreat into the safety of my sketchbook because of personal circumstances. This was very much a wonderful silver lining as it sparked off latent charm that urged me to go off at a tangent one day. One morning, I decided to pull out dandelion roots and all, and decided to paint the entire thing. I had never painted a dandelion that was at the flowering stage. I had certainly never paid much attention to the distinctive leaves or the root, never painted any roots in any sketches. I thought this is a really interesting way to fill up a new sketch book. I could document the wild flowers or weed's I spotted in my daily walks. There are a few other factors that have really helped me to enjoy filling my sketch book. I was able to turn the sketchbook portraits so that both pages gave a vastly elongated area with which to play with and presented a different opportunity to fill this space and this was something that I'd never done before. Although I often painting several times over, I found that painting these flowers gave me a much deeper and unique appreciation of each flower. This in turn really helped my observational skills. Another asset for producing sketches like this was exploring the textures or blooming that occur under certain conditions with watercolors, which is one of the many joys for me when working with this medium. Finally, I wanted to keep on playing with ink lines and specifically understanding the minimum level of detail that can be added in order to provide enough information, and also to contrast against the looseness of the water color. At the time of this recording, I have almost 30 double-page spreads of wild flowers which bring me much happiness when I look over them. I have always believed that enjoyment is a very important aspect and motivating factor for me. As I wouldn't dedicate an entire sketch book to wild flowers otherwise.
5. My version of expressive florals: Many folks are attracted by the notion of loose watercolors that I can seemingly achieve with ease. I want to explore several facets of this look. My method has been to lay down the watercolor first based on a refined shape before adding enough ink details so that the two mediums can communicate, the characteristics of each flower. I think it would be really helpful to explore this relationship a little bit more before we go any further. It is a two-part process, but where both carry the responsibility of providing information. Laying down the watercolor, and watching all those spontaneous interactions of the pigment fills several boxes for me is energetic, impressionistic, and expressive. This watercolor layer is like establishing the essentials, the foundations on which the ink will sit. Then adding the ink details, ticks the boxes of specific and detailed. I think these two aspects appeal to my personality because a big part of me does want to be free and expressive, but a little part of me still wants that little bit of control, and detail that the ink provides. It's important to point out at this stage that there is no fixed ratio of watercolor to ink lines. Before you frown, I want you to know that all the warm up exercises will help you evaluate on a sliding scale of what is appropriate from one sketch to the next. Just as each one of us is unique, each flower is unique, so we have to gauge our responses to that particular flower accordingly. Although it's not a one size fits all, I do believe that what I present will help you to tackle any flower or even any subject of your choosing, after you've completed this class. For example, you can see here that I often add just a little bit of ink line here and there to fill up the negative space, and it has no water color in the background. In some flowers, there's very little ink line. In others the ink line is quite dominant. I'd like you to be open to the collaborative process. Although the watercolor takes up the vast majority of the page, it relies on input from the ink. Imagine if you took away the entire watercolor layer, what you're left with wouldn't quite make sense as the ink cannot tell the story on its own. If you didn't fill in the ink, there's a sense that is not quite complete. In that regard, the watercolor layer can be much more underworked, than what you may be used to. This watercolor and in combination is a partnership. In fact, I found that is two-step approach, alleviates some of the over-working that we sometimes encounter. It's like you're given a second opportunity to make things right. The ink doesn't always have to follow the contours of the watercolor that you've laid down. It can work independently if you think it needs adjusting to communicate something better in the stems or the leaves, you're free to amend and adjust as many times throughout the process, as we will be taking time to pull back before making the best decision. Even if it's just a few seconds, you'll make all the difference. I just want to quickly go over what I understand to be loose watercolors. Different artists will have different definitions and different approaches. Much of the fluidity is achieved using this particular watercolor technique. Wet on wet is adding wet paint, to wet washes and allowing the pigment to spread out unhindered flowers and foliage or for a good platform for practicing wet on wet, because the organic forms and rich colors lend themselves to a more relaxed application. Elise approach will have varied edges from hard to soft and they might even lose images. So you will not necessarily achieve clean, crisp lines. We have defined edges all the time. A painting may be described as free as just the essentials are included to communicate visually, and provide enough information for a belief of painting. We are not trying to capture every detail or portray something that is exactly true to life. Is not what you leave in, is what you leave out. What I mean by expressive, realistic colors is the colors will tend to be quite close to the subject. However, it's often the artist personal creative response to the subject or flowers, in this case, that will allow them to interpret the colors as they wish. Freestyle fluid strikes are created when the lines and colors, mix on the paper itself. The wet brush often guys a wash in a new direction than the water movement will act as a current for the paint to flow. Distinctive value changes. By this, I mean strong, light, and dark contrasts. The variations in tone and value will help with the perception of tone, and by adding focal points. Lastly, the minimal ink details balance out the loose approach I've just discussed. As we continue with this class, I will talk more about how this aspect will be incorporated. A loose watercolor approach should not be confused with just playing messy painting that is lazy or sloppy. I tried to approach every floral very thoughtfully and extremely intentionally. So I don't become bogged down with too many unnecessary details. It also means operating by intuition more than intellect. For me my work became a little bit looser of my confidence was built up, and I became free with my strikes, letting them do the work instead of over painting areas. However, it's worth mentioning that finding this balance will take some time. However, it will come with time and practice. Fast analysts may not be for everybody. I can only teach you my approach, and my preferences and outlooks towards the style of painting. I really wanted to share this with you because it excites me, and inspires me and makes me feel stupidly happy.
6. Letting Go & Embrace Intuition: I don't want to make this sound over simplistic when I say painting loosely is a state of mind. This is often what I hear from students. They want to know about letting go of the need for making their sketches perfect or the need to control the paint, trying to capture every detail, and not wanting to make a mess. Also, there's a lot of fear about making a mistake and not being able to fix it. We're going to take a little look at some of these issues. I know some of you want to get to the real painting part, but so much of our creativity happens in our mind that this absolutely has to be addressed. Please hear me out. The narrative might say, "If what we created doesn't look like the object in front of us, then we've made a faulty painting." We may feel that it is of lesser value and perhaps, maybe you've wasted your time because it didn't meet your expectations, and that in turn brings up other uncomfortable feelings. I do have a whole class on leaning into discomfort in my perfectionism class or as part of my 14 day mindset challenge. I won't go into too much depth here, but it's worth mentioning because in order to achieve the looseness, we have to adopt a different approach where we're not concerned or fixated by the final piece looking like a real depiction. If you can see these sketches as playful studies, your own investigations into color mixing, your own research into pigment, playful ways to understand water ratio, you'll have a much better relationship with your paint brush and paper. This relaxed approach that I've arrived at flies against decades worth of all conditioning and certain perfectionist tendencies that I still lapse into. I myself, I'm the product of a formal art education here in the UK, where I was taught to draw and shade realistically, almost to the point of hyper-realism. Oftentimes, my tutors would be pleased with the effort I put in, and unintentionally gave me the impression that creating realistic art was worth more as I received higher marks. I'm wondering if a loose representation goes against what many of you may have been taught that art should be when creating or assessing art. You might have heard this from a teacher or other significant people in your life. Even now after many years, there's a tiny voice in my head waving, saying, "Hey, remember me, don't forget those details." Arriving at the loose stage has taken years of unraveling to undo some of this conditioning. This chart demonstrates how setbacks actually strengthen and escalate the rate of learning. I don't know how long some of you have been using watercolors, perhaps five months or five years in my case, so please be aware going into the exercises that I've caught us lie head start on some of you, and don't go in with the notion that you have to get it right first time, or the third time, or even the ninth time. I want us to better position ourselves and embrace the loose and unhindered watercolor application. In order to do this, we have to take risk, make a lot of mess, play some more, and learn from these messes. This is where the magic will happen amongst the confusion and the botched attempts. By leaving that comfort zone, you're leaving behind the can'ts, musts, must not, shoulds and ought tos, and all the other negative thoughts. Some people call this the grown zone, the area where we're exposed to a level of uncertainty, and we have to grapple with all the insidious messages of the rights and wrong way of painting. It's the very economy of loose painting that makes it so hard to do well. In order to achieve that, let's go over some of the important points before I introduce the intuition part. This is a difficult one. Surrender the need for results. This point goes hand in hand with being fearless. You can't be fearless if you're always painting for results when we're process orientated. Hence, there are several warm ups I would like you to do, and not results orientated. You're able to let go of the need for amazing results every time. The most effective results will come from the process of painting, from the process of learning. Lastly, I want you to embrace the experimentation. When you're painting, don't be afraid to take risks. Ask yourself, what happens if I do this? What happens if I change that? What happens if this were a different color or if I put it down in a different place. Don't think about it too much. Just act, watch the results, and then move forward. Through all this meaningful practice, we'll be in striking distance of intuition. You may have already experienced this, when you have been so lost in your painting that you lost track of time. This is sometimes called the flow state when it just seems like you and your brush. I believe this is our personal connection to the art process that allows the art to lead the way. It comes after much time in partnership with my brush, my pans, my sketchbook, and my wild flowers when we begin to trust. It's something that I can only describe as a guide from within. Trusting to trust the process is scary and it will take time. Just as intuition will take time to build up. Steve Jobs called intuition more powerful than intellect, and Einstein said, "The only valuable thing is intuition. " Unfortunately, it's too easy to get so busy that we drown out that intuitive guidance that we all naturally have. Try to think of intuitive painting as the practice of mindfulness with a brush in your hand. As you release your attachment to judgment of outcomes, painting practice will allow you to open up to being more present. Being intuitive when painting allows your creative self some compassion and kindness. Your intuitive channels open up while you're fully engaged in the moment. Letting intuition guide you allows you to let go of the things that get in the way of your full creative expression, like perfectionism, comparison, and the need for external approval. When we engage with trust, it will support you and it will help you to gain courage to explore and experiment. I want to end by saying, when painting, sometimes you have to be willing to accept what the paint and paper give you. You must literally go with the flow. Sometimes the paint will mix in ways that didn't mean to happen, or the extra drips of paint can be interesting additions to your work. Try to see these as opportunities rather than mistakes. One of the greatest joys for me of painting in watercolor is it's spontaneity. Don't try to analyze or control what comes out. Just let the brush move instinctively on the page. Try not to think about the outcome. If you find yourself stopping or getting stuck, just repeat to yourself, "There are no mistakes, there are only opportunities. I'm learning so much from this mess, there are no mistakes."
7. Selecting your flowers: This is one of the most enjoyable parts for your project. As I said earlier, I'm naturally attracted to wild flowers because of their natural quarks. But you can pick them from your own garden or even buy them if you wanted. Please don't feel that you have to go out and find the perfect bloom for this class. Remember, this particular sketch book came about because I simply wanted to paint weeds which grew at odd angles and have weird kinks. I do think it is essential to have some connection to the flowers you choose and eventually paint as it will help enormously to give you meaning to what you create. I'm drawn to certain plants. For example, I don't like over delicate ones, and I'm sure you will have your preferences. This is part of what makes your paintings unique. I honestly believe if you're not particularly interested in a flower, then that will most likely come through in the painting. Don't settle on the first flower. Walk around, pick a few, maybe smell them, see how they feel in your hand. I often end up with a small posie flowers by the time I'm walking home. You can make the decision later. When walking around, keep your eyes open for bright points within the undergrowth or hedges. The wonderful thing about wild flowers and weeds are, you can find them almost everywhere. They might be growing in the cracks of pavements or by the side of the road, even in car parks. Of course you can pick a flower from your garden but part of the fun for me is searching them out while I am walking. If you want to identify a flower or weed, then there is a really handy app for your phone that my daughter and I love to use. I know there are lots of different versions. We often use this when we're out and about. You simply launch the app, take a photo of the mystery flower. It'll come up with a list of the most likely contenders. In this case, it is the wild carrot or the pretty name for it is Queen Anne's lace as it's also known. I always pick several of the same type of flowers. So I have lots of reference just in case I do decide to paint them. Sometimes, I often put my impromptu posies in jars of water for a day or two while I make up my mind, and they sit there waiting patiently to be painted. We will talk a little bit more about intuition, but this is where it begins. The choice that you make. One flower may speak to you more than the others. There are a few questions I ask myself when considering a flower for water coloring. First of all, would I be really excited to paint this. What I want to paint it several times over so I understood this weed or plant more. Also, I may have noticed if the leaves are quite unusual or they grow differently as they move downwards towards the roots. Basically, would this weed or wildflower sustain my interest for 30-40 minutes? If it's a yes, it will be a good fit for you. You may also be wondering, why not just take a photo of the flower instead of picking it. The simple answer without getting into a lengthy discussion is, it will just not be the same. Being able to view your bloom at 360-degree angle, look at it close-up, feel the petals or smell any fragrance, all adds to the experience and impacts layers and layers of information that a 2D image simply cannot convey. For this reason, I really would love it if you went out and found your own flower. I think you will probably learn twice as much by doing this than copying me.
8. About Warm Ups: What I'm about to show you in the following videos may look unfinished, messy, and unrefined. However, these warm-ups can also be viewed as rough drafts that will perform vitally important jobs. I actually create piles and piles of roughs in order to understand shape and also heighten my own observational skills. Then they hang around for a while until I throw them away. They have served their purpose. When you are obsessed with achieving a good result, it often creates a really big mental barrier for many of us, including myself. As a beginner, I was often afraid of messing up. I believe this is a big frustration for a lot of artists. I hope that producing very simple versions of a flower will be a valuable ingredient to successful floral painting further down the line. Warm-ups have to be part of the process, especially if you're not used to working this way. Knowing how much water our brush can hold, or by looking at value on color theory in warm-ups. Before we move on to the main color version, we will learn twice as much. The chances of producing a stunning loose floral will be greatly increased. Treat each warm-up as a work in progress and nobody has to see it apart from you. These warm-ups will also provide you with a good basic toolkit which you can use and adapt to any flower and in fact, any object as the principles will remain the same. Working this way can help you avoid or be mentally prepared for any difficulties you may encounter rather than jumping straight into a larger or more finished watercolor. Using a bigger brush than you think will help you avoid focusing too much on details. I know as a beginner, I used a small brush as I felt more comfortable and safe. You may not think it makes a difference when using a small brush to fill a shape compared to using a large brush. However, using fewer strokes when you have a large brush in your hand will help keep your piece look fresher. I know for some of you it will be a big ask. For this class, try to go at least the next size up. I've been using number nine or ten round brush for the last four years. As I continue to fill up my special floral sketchbook, I am seeking larger and larger brushes, moving onto the number 12 and the number 14. As I was in an experimental mood one day, I decided to use the Chinese-style brush for this piece. I was amazed at how versatile it was for making sweeping movements. Then I researched some more and decided to move onto these quill brushes. They have a clear plastic wrapper that holds the base of the bristles together and exactly bound with a few stiff small wires rather than the traditional metal farrell. They are so versatile. They can do everything. It's large enough to cover broad areas quickly, but can also come to a very fine point for smaller items like delicate stems. Having a large brush allows you to cover an area faster, which helps with that spontaneous loop. The crown brushes that I use can hold not only a ton of water, but also loads of pigment. To fully load a brush is essentially to fully saturate a brush. Applying a wash with a fully loaded brush is an important element that will help with the mingling of the different colors on the paper. First, we need to prime the brush by wetting it thoroughly in our water. This will ensure that it will be able to pick up the paint easily. Next we need to create the right consistency and right value for our needs before we load it onto our brush fully. Loosen and dilute the paint by adding water to it to make it more transparent. Stroke your brush across the top of your pigment. I'm using opera rose, but try it with any color. Bring your brush back to your puddle of water and mix the two together without rinsing out your brush. Continue to add more brushstrokes of your chosen color until you get the correct value of color you're trying to achieve. We can pick up the maximum amount of color by turning this brush around a few times and loading each side. It's now essentially loaded with all the moisture it can carry without dripping. Although you will see in some of my demo is that I've actually overloaded my brush, which is fine. When you touch the paper, that bead of water on the end will release very quickly. The right water and paint ratio is related to the value and opacity and it can be quite tricky to get this balance right at first, but it will eventually become part of your instinct. With enough practice and observation, it will be second nature. By saturating your large juicy brush with paint, you'll be amazed at how it automatically frees your mind and loosens up your approach. We will be looking at time limits when undertaking the warm-ups. Working fast, but intentionally also helps with that need to add too many details. If you imagine you literally don't have the time to add details, it will help you focus on the main elements. Painting quickly also means that you'll stop sooner. It's worth seeing your floral sketch as an exercise to begin with, not a masterpiece. If overworking painting is one of your struggles, imposing a time limit will help you get the essentials done without overdoing things. The other factor involved is working while the paper is damp. Watercolor can do some unexpected things. Blooms and backgrounds are a common frustration for watercolor artists. Try to let these things happen without worrying too much about them. You learn under what conditions they happen so you can better control watercolors in the future. Remember to use lots of water to allow the colors to flow and just spread them around in the warm-up exercises and see what they do. We will look at how blooms can be incorporated into your florals in a later warm-up video. A quick word about brushwork, it is a manual skill that will develop over time. Muscle memory plays a big part. There is no substitute for practice. If you factor in the skill into your painting sessions, you will soon see the difference. Look at your brush as part of the creative process, as it will help you translate your mental ideas into physical shape. Finally, we will take a look at the paper. I have talked about different types of paper in my watercolor fundamentals class. What I'll say in this class is each brand and weight will behave differently, giving you different results. Bearing in mind, we are all using different paper, different brands of watercolor, and different brushes. We will be achieving various results. The papers that I've chosen, personal choice because I know how they will react under certain conditions as I've practiced extensively on them. This is a poppy study that I did as part of a series when puppies were just growing everywhere it seemed. The paper I used is heavyweight cartridge paper. I did another study where I used Winsor and Newton. The reason I'm showing you this is because I want you to be open to trying different papers. Although I do love my mouth scheme, this is the mouth scheme version. It just means that I can play around with smooth paper, very textured paper, and the mouth scheme isn't quite so textured. Using different scales as well is something that I am experimenting with. It really depends on your preferences and what you ultimately want to achieve. You may decide to use one brand of paper for the first demo and then a different paper for the second. It's up to you to have as much fun with this and not to worry too much.
9. Warm up 1 : Shape: Nature is filled with an incredible amount of details in all shapes and sizes. That's what makes it beautiful and a source of endless subject matter for art. However, it's not a good idea to paint all of the details you see as you can get overwhelmed very fast. In this section, we're going to undertake some monochromatic studies of our flower in two stages with the emphasis on shape and the value. I hope these exercises, will tackle some of the common problems that arise when seeking to paint in a more loose, expressive manner. While I was creating this class, I asked my followers on Instagram where their greatest challenges were when attempting loose watercolors. A re-occurring theme was adding too many details or becoming fixated on details to the point of frustration. I'm going to explain how some of this preoccupation with details can be eased through the process of simplifying the floral we see in front of us. The Cambridge dictionary defines simplification as the process of making something less complicated and therefore easier to do or understand or the thing that results from this process. In order to portray our flower and convey our vision without including every little detail, we have to figure out what the essence of our flower is, what gives each flower its own personality, what are its distinctive features that we can record on our paper. I hope you recognize that as artists, you are in a position to interpret the subject matter to suit your needs and tastes. You can manage how the flower or any other subject matter can be translated through paint on the paper. Although we may instinctively want to paint the flower just as it is, without changing them, it can lead to a busy and confusing sketch. It's important to be able to conceptualize or at least visualize flat shapes for your flat watercolor paper. Hans Hoffman, a figure in the abstract expressionism movement, said, "The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. " The moment you leave something out that you see, say some leaves or a few flower heads, you have actually simplified. However, there are varying degrees of simplification. The first way we can simplify is through shape. In the study of art, a shape is an enclosed space where you're creating two dimensions, length and width and you can add value to the shape, that is adding highlights and shadows making it look more three-dimensional. I will explain this in more detail later though. As an artist, we are translators, so we need to adapt the details we see by looking at the main shapes and form. Simpler shapes can convey the essence of a subject better than its details. When you focus only on shape, you are less likely to feel the pull of overwhelming details. When we thinking areas, it becomes easier to change and edit shapes to suit your painting, perhaps moving or removing clutter that does not add any further information. If you just paint what you see without thinking, evaluating or redesigning, you may end up with a painting that is just very confusing. This makes sense in theory, but it's time to put some of it into practice. It will also help us become aware of our subject by increasing our observational skills. Painting a shape, so it's more readable, need not be difficult even if it's a complex plant. I'd really like these to be quick studies using printer paper, just four or five minutes each and I suggest you use a timer. During this exercise once would be great, but doing it two or three times, editing each time will be even better. Another way I want to explain this is to imagine your flour in silhouette form. So imagine there is a powerful light shining onto your flower and it casts a shadow. I've got delphinium here and if I shine a bright light at it, we can see the shadow, the shape of it, the silhouette in the background. If I turn it around, you can see all different shapes are being made and that is a strong characteristic of each flower. If I were to hold a different flower next to it, that's the characteristic of that flower. With this delphinium, you can see that they're not fully opened yet. So they form these little nodules let's say and there's no need to include all of them. We're going to try simplifying them down, but using shape as our guide. I'm going to show you a few different examples. This is the yarrow. You can see it's really distinctive. If I show you this section here, you can see it is just a mass of clump up here where the flower heads are and I just want you to draw it in, paint it in like that with these 1, 2, 3 little stems of a central stem, look out things like that. This is the butterfly bush or the bud layer and if I hold it right up against the wall, if it was in full flower, it would look like a mass of flower. But you can see that there is actually light shining through it, so that's some of the things that we can be mindful about. I love these little things on either side, that's really cute. So let's get started on some shape studies. This is the first flower that I shall be using for my shape study. It's called a yarrow and I just literally found it on the side of the road. I don't go anywhere special to pick these. It's a weed basically, it's not cultivated. Let's have a look at the major characteristics. We have a clump of flowers here and a clump of flowers here, there's a V-shape here where the stems meet and they go down into this central stem here with leaves just radiating outwards, it's all very irregular. First of all, I cannot possibly try to add all the little do dads here, the receptacles. So I'm going to slightly close my eyes, squint. With squinted eyes against this white background, I can see in contrast how this would make a shadow and that is what we are going to try to recreate. So I'm going to load up my brush with quite a lot of water, you can see it's glistening. Drop it on there. A lot of pigment has been released onto this palette here. I don't want this wash to be too dark because I have plans for this. We want a light to mid tone wash, I think that's probably enough. Remember to put five minutes on your timer. First of all, I'm going to do with the clumps of flower heads here and if I really squint, they do form little V sections with bobbly tops, that's the only way I can describe it, something like that. The other clump is about here, V section there and there's two minor ones that actually go behind it. I know it looks completely formless but when I say we are dealing with shape, we don't need to be looking at too many details. This is part of the overwhelmed that I know some of you feel when you're presented with the whole plot like this. I'm going to draw in this V section now. I can't see the central stem at the beginning because it's covered in leaves, but that's enough for now. There's little bubble shapes like that and underneath this canopy that it joins on similar to this, I know there are little stems in there, but they create one mass. So I can't make them all out, I just know that they're there, but that's not what I'm quite concerned with at the moment. That probably needs a bit more there. Keeping it simple could be a slogan throughout this exercise. Yet simplicity may seem like a challenge, so we have to break it down. By looking at it just as shape, we can free ourselves of the distractions of color and value. Although we will look at painting leaves in context in a later class, for now, we will try to use the pressure of the brush by pushing a little bit harder to create larger areas of leaf or the side of the brush to perform this shape exercise. I'd rather you did this than using a tip of a brush to draw an outline and filling the shapes in. That isn't going to help with the spontaneity. Keep squinting. I'm going to paint in the central stem even though I can't see, it does something like that and there's a leaf that does this. There's one behind it doing that sort of business, one comes out at an angle like that. All I'm doing is using the pressure of my brush to create these marks, I'm not trying to use the tips to add too many details because we're literally just working with shape and I will reveal to you, please believe me, why we are going to work this way first. We will be spending longer and longer adding details, but not at this stage. I need you to understand how this plant is created. It does more like that. So I think I've spent less than five minutes, but I'm going to do another one because I've got time. We're starting with a simple one-color wash, because we're trying to become familiar with looking at shape. This will help us to focus, as it's just one of the ways we can prepare ourselves for the bigger task later on. If you can see, that I'm holding the brush towards the end, because I don't want to put too much pressure while I add these teeny weeny stems here. As we complete the warm-ups, we will become experts at evaluating and gauging the level of information, therefore, the details that we want to include. I do go into much more detail about the role of repetition in my 14-day mindset challenge. The main point that is worth repeating here is with every version or every repetition of your floral, your confidence will grow, and you will find your own unique solutions and ways of doing things. These are the arrows that I did, and you can see as they progress, there is a little bit more information that I'm adding, I'm becoming a bit more confident. I've added more forms. This is the two that you saw me paint and yes, they are still forms. I'm still studying the shape. But I think by the time I've got to this stage, I've made a little bit more of a distinction, and that only comes with time with confidence. This is five minutes worth of study, 10 minutes worth of study, the third time is 15, and this is after 20 minutes. I've understood that ARE planned a lot better. So I think my warm up has definitely been worth it. I'm now moving on to this Jasmine and I've mixed up a little bit more wash because I was running a little bit low. Exactly the same light to mid value wash. First of all, let's start about here with one of the white flowers of the Jasmine. There's another flower that does this, but then the petals merge and I'm not trying to draw painting the individual petals. I'm just painting in the shapes that the petals makes. They both looks like they almost got down on one stem. There's another flower. Looks spiky [inaudible]. Can you see I'm holding at the end here. Petal on this one doesn't overlap, the other two. But saying that I've just noticed there is actually a leaf behind it. The leaf comes round like so, and two bits sticking out like that, and there's a major leaf there. When I'm painting the leaves, I'm pushing down a lot harder, and using the site of the brush as well. Their results have another stem. There's too much how my paint brush here. That leaf actually touches that flower stem, something like that. Then we have another flower. So there's a petal, start petal to here, edges, edges. That's the trumpet part goes down, very slender stem or something like that. Then this stem joins here, and then there's another set of petals that join it, just underneath. When you sketch a floral ones, you will learn one set of information. But if you paint it more times, you will have gathered four times the amount of information. Remember these early five-minute studies, and with each study, you can lean into the discomfort of the unpredictability. It's better to become comfortable with the uncomfortable. In these formulative warm-up stages. Five steps down, and then there's another set of stems about here. At an angle like that. Another way to work is to look at the negative space that the overlapping leaves or flowers leave behind, that is the whitespace. You can see how much more observation has been improved. I've actually surprised myself. Please don't underestimate how much you can learn about your florals with this simple shape exercise. Let's take a look. Compare and contrast with the shapes studies that I did. They are now dry. Let's take a closer look. You can see that I changed the angle slightly and there's different information that is coming through every time I've either decided I don't need some things I've left out or I've added it looks like extra flowers here that I didn't include in this first version. So I was obviously picking up more information over the five minutes every time I tried it out. In this version here, you can see I've really made a bold statement about where the white flowers are, even though they're whit. I still added the shape there. I'm really pleased with that one, and overall the progression is great. I think the takeaway for me is how bold the shapes are becoming here compared to this first version that I showed you, it is still recognizable as Jasmine, and that's what I want to carry forward when I move onto the color versions. When we are defining just the shape, we are actually building a better foundation for understanding the structure of florals. From this vantage point, we can bring in the other elements to build them up one by one. Shape is the base of this construct, and this is often the case. Whatever you are painting, from landscapes to buildings, to fruit. This is the honeysuckle that I painted. There isn't as much information as when I start looking. After 10 minutes, after 15 minutes, I can see so much more happening in these two. If I were to go to the color stage right away, I know that I built up enough information for me to be satisfied that I understood this plant a lot better than if I just went in straight away trying to do color version. It would have ended up something like this. It doesn't have as much information compared to this one, especially where you can see a lot more of the distinctive statements coming out of the trumpet like honeysuckle.
10. Warm up 2 : Value: The subject of value can be immensely detailed because it covers everything related to rendering. However, I've tried to simplify it down for the context of this class. At its most basic, looking at value when painting is very much a study of light and shadow. This can be conveyed by how light or dark the color is. Doing a value study is a good way of figuring out just how intense or light different parts of a subject needs to be. Plus studying value will also really help you improve your color selection later on. Tonal value describes how light or dark a color is independent of its hue. That is, being the color appearance of red, green, or blue, for example, because we see and understand objects as a result of how light or dark they are. Tone is really important. Watercolor painting is very much about balancing the lightness and darkness. I tend to use quite a lot of contrast within my own florals. Variations in tone and value, can help your perception of form, which will come in very handy when we paint our florals. By understanding and using tone correctly within our flower, it can have a big impact on the finished piece. To use tone well, you need to develop a different way of looking at color and interpreting it onto your paper. As an artist, it will really help to recognize the different values of light and dark. This can be done using a value scale. The traditional value scale used by artists normally includes nine gradually increasing tones from pure black to pure white. Possessing toning black and white is fairly simple. However, when it comes to judging the value of a colored hue, it becomes a lot trickier to make it easier to assess the tonal value of different boxes. Here is a black and white version of the same photo. Although the boxes below were painted in Windsor Red, when converted to black and white, they pretty much look the same. By controlling the value of the colors you apply, you can achieve an impression of form. Let's have a look at our plant. Shadows are cast in the absence of light, so there's always a part of this object or our flower receiving more light than other parts. Observing where the light hits the plant and where parts of the leaves are in shadow requires careful observation. Just look at your flower. Ignore all the colors and shapes and textures, pretend they're not there. The method I use is to slightly close your eyes or squint as this helps us see the values in a simplified way. You will see probably fuzzy shadows instead of colors as there's less light entering your eye. Look out for three distinct value, light, middle, and dark in your flower. Another great tip we can use as reference is to take a closer photo of your flower on your phone and use one of the settings that turn it into a black and white version. If you're able to use the exposure function on your camera to further contrast between the light and dark, this may help you as well, because it works almost the same way as squinting. It's basically filtering the masses of shadow and light. So once again, make note of where the darkest darks are and where the lightest areas are. For this value study, we're going to mix just one color. This is ultramarine, and again, I wanted quite light. Let's just quickly have a look. I think even lighter than that, that's still within the mid tone section. A little better. I have plans for this and I will be able to reveal all a bit better. We're starting with this sweet pea here, and we're pretty much going to follow what we did in our shape study. But when we get to a certain point, we will be able to drop much more concentrated pigment in the areas where we think it is very dark already. I can see it is dark down here in this leaf and in amongst here. Again, we have to work fast. Hopefully, we can get this done in less than five minutes. So starting off with that leaf, I said it was particularly dark. It's about there and there's another little leaf that joins onto it like so. Again, these are just studies where we're trying to observe, but we're also trying to work pretty fast. Because even though it is just printed paper, when we come to the color, we'll be following the same principles. Another section of the stem comes here, and now we reach the first of the sweet pea stems that go all the way up there with two little buds just here, and they're very, very light. So I'm actually going to wash out my water color brush. I don't know if you can pick up on that. It's the tiniest amount of pigment on my brush. I'm still going to be adding the shape, but using basically water. I'll show you what happens, and we can use the same technique when we come to the color stage. So go back and pick up a bit more of my wash. There's a leaf comes here and a little one, like so. There's a mass of sweet pea blooms all the way here. One of the things, if you squint, as we did with the other shape studies, don't try to pick out individual petals, just paint in the forms. There's a stem that comes here that joins on to those leaves I had already painted in, quite a thick one. The sweet pea is almost like a bit of a round shape, something like that. You can see the stem coming out of there going downwards. Maybe that's a bit too curve but never mind. Carrying on downwards, thicker stem there, and then one at this angle which does join on to the previous one. So great to improve observational skills. I will say again, if you are able to do this twice, three times, it's going to really, really help you out later on when we come to do our color work. There's a stem that comes here. There's the little teeny weeny tendrils, which are lovely, but I don't think I've got time to include them at the moment. There is one more leaf there. I forgot all the petals that are happening up here. The stems, I've already noticed not much. Yeah, they're pretty dark as they find the petal, but the petals that they join onto themselves are quite light. I'm not going to try and paint in. Again, it's just an impression of petals, there's a whole mass of them over there. Now, we are at a stage where we can now mix up a bit more pigment into our washed. Let's just do it in this section here. I'm probably going to do it a bit darker than necessary because I want you to see what I'm trying to do here when I talk about value study. Looking at this part of the sweet pea, it seems one of the leaves that they seem to come in twos, at least one of them is dark. Let's start with this one. You can see straight away how that's made the difference. If I squint, the mid section of that one makes a difference. There's a stem, this stem going up there is lighter than the leaf underneath it, but I'm not going to bother with that. I'm just going to fill this leaf in, that is much darker and you can see the contrast that's happening already. This tiny sliver of stem is darker, the underside of that is dark, and in amongst all these blooms, there is a lot of light and dark happening. So the best thing is to squint. The receptacle is dark in there. There's sort of in and out of the petals. The mid section of each petal seems to be darker, and the stems are dark in certain places. More like doing the receptacles. This set of receptacles up here are very dark, and then behind that are another set of petals I completely missed out. Let's paint those in. Yeah, goes something like that. I love it when they do that. Teeny weeny buds are also dark. Let's pick up a bit more of the concentrated pigment and that leaf is much darker. I'm missing a section here. Yeah, these little tendrils are very dark. While I'm here, there's a lot of contrast happening within these sweet pea blossoms up here. It's laid a bit more onto my brush. Yes, I'm using the receptacles as a guide. That's a receptacle. That one is this one behind it as well, and a stem on one side seems to be darker. As it comes down to here, that's dark and that's dark. Also this leaf down here is very dark. You can see that the colors are merging in, and this is similar to what they'll do when we come to the color version. It helps us see things in terms of light and dark, and there's a beautiful contrast here. The more you do these value studies, the more your observational skills improve your hand-eye coordination, your muscle memory. I really encourage you to spend an extra five or 10 minutes repeating some of these studies. I think it's really worth taking a look at these values studies once they're dry, even though they are only on printed paper. Of course, it won't react quite the same as if you were painting on water color paper. You can see how much contrast there was, and that's why I wanted to start with a light wash. You can see here the stork has almost disappeared. Being able to drop darker pigment while the paper is still damp is a very valuable part of being able to paint loose florals. Also, the muscle memory involved will help you for sure when we come to do the color studies, this is all building up to the color studies. You can see I did three different versions. Each one of these is just that little bit different. There is so much value in looking and painting and connecting with your brush and your paper. You notice that I keep asking you to work fast within a very short period of time for all of these warm ups. Because you're producing so much, it helps to turn off that analytical side of your mind and you will start to rely more on intuition. Furthermore, adding dark pigment toward color is simple, but adding lightness can't be done. The transparency of watercolor means you need to make evaluations about tone at the beginning of the painting process. With water colors, once you give form a certain value, it's really tricky to make it lighter, so that's why we did this exercise.
11. Warm up 3 : Inking: One of the greatest challenges that an artist faces is knowing when to stop painting. We often find ourselves in an artistic flow, work creating is so fun that we don't want it to end or we think we can just add a little bit more to make the painting better. Unfortunately, with watercolor paintings, it's easy to overwork and knowing when to stop is especially important. All these pages and pages of our flowers are my interpretations of visually communicating. Suggestions of what I thought we'd look like according to my brush. I did not feel bound to fill in every detail, yet it remains fairly identifiable because the essential information is available on the paper. Referring back to some of the comments that I received about expressive water color and line from students. They had issues with knowing when to stop adding details or thinking. It needed more details in either ink or watercolor, and it may be because you don't trust there's sufficient information to communicate effectively from either the watercolor or ink. However, our brains are really quite wonderful, because it will be able to take what our eye sees and compensate for any missing information. There really isn't any need to pile on extra details. You don't even realize your brain is compensating for you. This organ inside our skull interprets what visual clues it's presented with. Fair warning, I am not a scientist. In the context of making art, the brain can process and filter external information and to make sense of the external world, it combines information from multiple sources, and so it delivers its own perception along with its interpretation when it thinks there is missing information, it makes a reliable guess. That's why you can probably tell in this piece here, it is a forget me not, despite not having any descriptive lines, I've painted just enough of its basic characteristics to describe a forget me not flower, rather than another flower with blue petals.All the warm ups we've done, they only hint at one aspect of the whole. The warm-ups with air to aid us, to guide us through enough technical confidence through practicing. The more showed you are with the essentials and the products you're using, the easier it will be to focus on the artistic possibilities of our final color floral painting. I wanted to show you much more close up version of the relationship between the ink and the florals. In most of these examples, there's very little instances where I've outlined the entire petal. We may have times where I feel like the negative space needs to be filled up and I will give an outline of a plant that isn't there, that I hadn't filled in, in watercolor. But if I show you this section here, you can see the watercolor has done a marvelous job of capturing the shape of those petals. That much more information where I have included it is in the receptacles and the stalk here and some of the petals where I felt that it just needed a little bit more shape to define it. In this example, I've actually used crimson ink. If I bring it a little bit closer to the camera, you can see I have outlined individual little blossom hands. I know I said just before, I don't outline them. Because there is a whole mass of flower heads here. I'm not going to be painting each individual one. In this instance, the watercolor has done the work of giving the shape. Then I've gone in with the ink and I've picked out some of the individual flower blossoms, not all of them, some of them. It gives that lovely contrast between the looseness of watercolor and the more graphic line quality that the crimson ink has bought in.I'm going to finally reveal why we did so many studies on rough paper, value studies and the shapes studies. All the sketches we can use for getting used to handling the ink. I've got quite a pile here, I've got others in the background as well, and it's rough. If you make a mistake is not a bother. I'm going to show you how we're going to go about doing this. Warm ups that we did. We'll give a very fine line. I'm going to go into more detail about where to apply the ink. But can you see if I'm just pressing really lightly and it is a beautiful fine line. But using the blue pumpkin, I'm going to give a slightly different line. If I do the same on the other side and I'm not even applying much more pressure. Can you see the difference in lime? It really depends on personal taste, dependence on the approach, your own interpretation. I can give you all the nibs and all the Pen holders that I use, but you may think they're pretty horrible. It's really down to you. This is a new one for me, and I'm just going to draw a tendril in here. Oh, it's got a lot of spring in it. It doesn't give a fine line like the mapping pen, various nibs on these Pen holders, and I'm going to use them all in this piece. Remember, we've got these warm ups that just don't printer paper. Well, there's no edges here, but I shall explain this. If you are using ink, you need to fill it up or dip your nib until we get to this section here. Not too much more, otherwise you'll be too blobby. If you have a look here, they are very pale, those buds, and they just fade into the paper. In this instance, I think we need to add the information. We're just going to do that and it fades too much here. I'm just going to add a little bit there, and that's already made a difference, I feel. The same again, on the other side because it is so pale. The washer so pale, you can't quite see the edge of that, but that makes it so much better. We're going to do the same again, go round and just pick out areas that we think needs that tiny bit more information. Actually, let's deal with these flower heads here, and they are messy. We need to give a definition of what's happening here, because there's lead in the background as well. I can see that some of the petals are in front. I'm making this line here to define the age of a petal and I'm not sticking to the edge. It won't look like a sweet peas, and there's another petal coming in here, the receptacle. It goes, so this line goes here. Yes. They stalk there. That makes sense, and receptacle is there. I think that makes sense. Within this mass, I have just define some of these in a petals, and I can see the stalk joining onto there. That makes sense to me, this one goes like that. This is too broken. It needs a little bit more definition, so I'm just going to add that to it and that's fine. The leaves are actually, I'm just going to leave that as it is. Remember this is only study prior to the main event. This leaf doesn't end abruptly like that. I'm just going to continue with it. Then it gives it more of a pronounced edge. The other thing that I can add using my incline are the tendrils. It's a lot easier to use a depend to add that information then to rely on the water color. I know I've started using it. This looks lovely already. I'm enjoying this part too much. I need to show you the rest of it. Moving onto this section here, we have receptacle. There's needs to be a bit of a stem happening here. The edge of a petal, I can see what's happening about here, goes in there, and another part of the petal guys like that. You can see that we don't have to stick to the watercolor outlines. If you feel that it needs that little bit more definition, then by all means, draw in the edge of the petal, in this case is the sweet peas. There's this happening there. I really like it just as it is. There's a petal here that does this. Now, this store goes in front, so I might just give a bit of a boost. Yet, where at here you can see it's fading out. That doesn't read. Well, so I'm going to give it an edge there. This is actually a leaf and that doesn't read well either. I have to help that along a little bit. I won't be outlining the whole thing. I think that's just about enough. Because I enjoy it so much, I want to have the tendrils. I know we are only using some of our warm-up pieces. But this, again, we're adding to our muscle memory, we are adding to our observational skills, and we are becoming familiar with using ink if you are not used to it. I'm going to do some more. I really hope the more you practice, the more intuitive reactions will come to you. Especially, say when we finally paint our final flower, are all can have elements of both control and chaos. When this balance is just right, it can appear that the work has taken on a life of its own which surprises me sometimes. Remember, every detail doesn't need to be spelled out for the viewer, and the ink conserved strengthen, assist, and support the watercolor. I'm actually going to swap over now, and show you a version using the Universal Fineliner. Just to prove that you can still use the same principle where we are just drawing in shapes to help us explain what is happening in this bud layer. You can pretty much use the Fineliner or the Fountain Pen to the same effect. That's lovely, that is all. Let's do a bit on this side actually, don't leave this site out. I'm going to quickly show you this side here. I do love them just as they are. However, I think it would help if I just gave a little bit more definition than the edge of the flower. I'm happy to use either all the pen and ink or a Fineliner, it achieves the same results. I would really love you to upload whatever version that you feel happy with. If you don't have pen and ink, it is not a big deal, just use a black biro if that's all you have. There's a space there and feel like I have to add it up. That's lovely. It's really easy to clean nib that has dried ink on it, or even after you finished, if the ink is still wet, you can just wash it off. Otherwise, just take standard kitchen roll and give it a rub, and you can see it's come off pretty easily.
12. Warm up 4 : Colour mixing: Green is definitely mother nature's favorite color. Every tree, bush, and flower stem comes in it's own unique shade. You probably know that mixing yellow and blue make green. It's obvious. However, it is a little bit more complicated if you want to make a selection of natural shades. The key is to play around with all the different shades of yellow and blue and different ratios of each pigment as you mix them with each other. Then by adding water in different amounts along with blues, reds, Payne's gray, even purples, and pinks, you have infinite variations of greens at your disposal. One of the most challenging aspects of watercolor painting for many is the elemental uncertainty in relation to how much water to use and also how the colors will interact on your paper. In order to limit some of this uncertainty, I think we should have a really quick dip into color theory to better understand how these colors could interact. Without some working knowledge of color theory you may accidentally muddy up your painting as you experiment on the paper. Leave this playful method, there's a lot of color mixing on the paper. We're going to create our own chart to develop some of their shades you love. I will be showing you lots of color mixes, but please don't think you have to use the same colors as me. There are so many variables along with different ratios of water to yellows and greens and adding little bits of red. My approach is aimed at understanding the basics of color mixing so you can easily work out for yourself what you like to use. This method isn't supposed to be about hard and fast rules, but more of a guidance. There are of course, lots of other ways. While I'm here, I just want to have a really quick run-through of all the different washes that you may hear artists use. The first one will probably be flat wash. It is where it is the same color and it is even all over. The next one will be gradient wash, where it starts off very dark and gradually becomes lighter and lighter. That's not the best version of it because there's too much water in there, but drop some more in there. You can see is getting lighter and lighter. The third version is called variegated wash, where if I apply, this is the viridian, and I decide I want to add a bit of opera rose, one of my favorite colors, they're blending together. If I dropped opera rose in there, that is part of the variegated thing happening. This is only really quick run-through, but we are going to be using this in our next warm up. I just want to familiarize ourselves with mixing on the paper. We are going to start off with mixing washes on our palate. This is lemon yellow and I'm going to add a little bit of sap green. There we go. This is contra rich paper. I'm just going to make a leaf shape and then drop in colors. I do have a downloadable PDF of leaf shapes that you can play around with. These are common ones. I don't know how you pronounce some of these terms, but lets just play around. That first one was called lanceolate. I don't think I said that right. Let's just make that leaf shape, which was very pointy at the top. I'm going to do another one because I want to compare the drying time slightly. I think in the first one, I'm going to drop in some yellow ocher, I'm going to dab it in and see what happens. In the second one, let's try some wintergreen. There we go. We're seeing how it's going to spread. Let's do a bit of that with it. Already this are drying at slightly different rates, gets mix up a little bit more lemon yellow, so that it's a slightly lighter value. See how this affects the color mixing. Loading a lot on to the brush because we want to enable the pigments to mix within the shape. That's why we did the shapes studies as well, there was too much on that brush. Little drip there. I think in this one, I will try some fallow turquoise. Oh, that's going to let lovely I think. Let's do another version. I didn't rinse that off, but it's all part of the experience. The next one down from that is the ultramarine. That's slightly different again. We won't know exactly how it's going to turn out until it dries. Let's move on. I think the next set of leaves are long. Let's try add some yellow ocher to what we already had mixed. It looks very yellow but it could be very important to find out what it will do in this leaf shape I'm doing now is called cordate. Let's try the next blue down for me, which is indigo. I think that I might have had a little bit too much on that brush, a little bit too intense. Let's add some water to that. Oh my goodness, look at that. Lovely. Rinse out my brush because it would've had an indigo, and pick up a little bit more of the yellow ocher wash. Let's make another cordate leaf shape. Blue down from that is actually payne's gray. Mix that up with a little bit of the ultramarine, just to see what it does. I'm just going to drop it in. Again, make sure that your brush is fully loaded and it's nice and wet and juicy because we do want these pigments to flow into each other. Let's try the olive green. Lovely. I've kept these really simple because when we over apply pigment, it tends to go quite muddy and we don't want that. For now, let's just keep it simple and let's add to the mix that we already have, some cadmium yellow. We're adding a bit of Prussian blue. Oh, there's a bit of red in that. Anyway, it's okay because it's all good information for us. Let's try what's called a reniform leaf. I think that's what it's called. It's quite round. Make another reniform just next to it. Within this, I think I shall be adding some, maybe some Windsor blue. Wonderful. Going back to maybe some of the Payne's gray, since we already have that mixed up. How wonderful is that? We're pretty much going to carry on like this, just mixing different shapes, different pigments, different ratios of water. It is so much better to test it out like this, practice on just cartridge paper rather than overworking a piece when we get to our final color floral. I'm going to show you how to leave some of the white is to only paint half of the leaf. Then fill in, even though as I don't outline it, with just a stroke like that. Wash out your brush and you should just be able to see with just the plain water that is already started to mix. Try that again with cadmium yellow and slightly different leaf shape, something like that. We outline the other side. Then let's start dropping some colors in here, and maybe along this line here. You can see how the pigment can only travel in the areas where there is actually water there. The cadmium yellow back in here just so that it does a few more tricks for me. Just washed out my brush and using the water, it's just plain water. There's nothing else on that brush and it's just doing this, which is really lovely to see. Let's just draw a line down here and watch what happens. Oh my goodness, that looks lovely. I might have to do another one quickly because that's just really gorgeous. Just where it's spreading there, I'm just going to use plain water and there's nothing on that brush apart from water to just draw it out, into this side. I just love playing about with things like that. You can introduce much of this into your color work. Now I'm flitting from side to side. I just want to go back and do a bit more because this looks a little bit half-baked. I think a tiny bit of gold could work well, I'm guessing. It's worth a guess. Oh lovely. Remember I said that the paint can only spread, where the paper is damp or wet. I'm going to create another outline. Oh very nice. Just add a few more stripes there. We have to wait and see what happens, but I'm really looking forward to seeing the results. I'm getting a little bit carried away. I started putting down some gold and I'm actually holding this. Let's drop a tiny bit of olive green and then start doing this with it. I'm tilting it. Again, oh my goodness, look at that. It's creating all marvelous effects and you can do that within color piece. Let's try adding a little bit of ultramarine. I'll just show you one more. I'm just going to drop in a little bit of the opera rose. I'm holding up a mango, so it's traveling down. How about if I keep introducing it from the top? Oh, I love it. I'm going to put the paper back down. It'll be great for autumn leaves. Just one more. That was two. No, we've got some movement there. I see it's traveling down there. That's lovely to see. I'll show you these when they dry. Probably the closest to how I work, even though this is just a warm up. I try to leave a bit of the paper showing because it adds to the contrast. It's amazing what opera rose does to a piece. You can see as it dries, it's pulled. Another reason why it's a good idea not to overwork something. Let the paint do its job. Let the paint dry in this process. Over time, you will start to trust. I want you to see the work of another Skillshare teacher called Stephanie Ryan. She also has a class on multi-color florals. This is what she says about color. "Let go of control and approach your art with a sense of wonder. Dripping color and water and trust that they will blend in beautiful ways. Allow the materials to react as they need to, and remember that beauty is found in the imperfections. Let the materials do the work for you. Let go the control and trust the process." Is definitely worth checking out Stephanie Ryan's class to get a different perspective on floral world colors. As we have now gone through this entire warm-up process, we are ready and we are primed to work on our color floral. Moving into this stage, you are going to have so much more confidence. Be much better aware of the capabilities of your brush and you paint on your paper.
13. Demo: Delphinium - part 1: First of all, the brush I will be using is the Number 2, Quill from Jacksons. Before I start, I do want to make sure that my pens are wet. Looking at the other colors that I'm going to need, I'm going to need some yellow. I'm just wetting them through so that when the time comes that they are nice and sticky rather than stiff. I might need a little bit of paints gray, which I have very little left up. You might need a new pen in there after this session. Let's start. First of all, I think we need to mix up a base color. Remember, we created a medium light value wash. What I want to do is pick up on the value that we're seeing here. It is a light green, so I'm going to mix that up. I think I'm going to add a tiny bit of sap green to that. Really, I think it needs a tiny bit of blues, so I'm just going to pick up some of that ultramarine. I think that's about right. So let's make a start. I'm going to show you my brush. It does look like there's quite a lot of water on there. So I'm just going to take it to the edge of my palette and take some off, just a little bit. I'm starting off with this, the very tip. As the stem gets lower and lower, it does change color. But remember we're going to form the shape first and I will be able to drop in colors. So this is just the beginnings of it. Let's mix up a little bit of this bluwy purple. This is the winsor violet. If you don't have a purple, mix a cool red with the cool blue. Again, we have to stick to light to meet value color just at this initial stage. Because remember, we can drop in darker pigments. But if it's too dark to begin with, it's very difficult in later stages. There's too much water on that, just taken a bit off the brush. I don't want you to panic. Try to remember what you did in the shape sessions and the value sessions. I'm not going to do a timer, but I do want to work quickly. If you don't have smooth watercolor paper, cartridge paper, heavyweight cartridge paper is really great. I've noticed that as the buds go further down, they become darker. So I've just added a little bit more pigment, and you see is already just slightly blended itself into the stem. Let's quickly do this side here. I mean, some of these buds are more green than they are purple. So we can deal with that aspect in just a moment. Yeah, as they move further down, I'm also noticing it forms like a very acute triangle. Oh, there's some more at the top which have completely missed out. There's something like that. If there was an imaginary line, a triangle there, and the other line would be there roughly. So I'm going to wash my brush. I think it's time to introduce a little bit of green to some of these. I'm just going to add a little bit of lemon yellow and use what I've got on the brush. It is quite glistening, so there's a fair bit in there. Oh, I love that. I just touched it. Because there's already, the pigment is still on the surface, I can manipulate it. Oh, I love it. I'm holding the brush towards the end, using it, using that tip just to make these cup shapes that I mentioned before. Oh, that's lovely. I think I need a bit more yellow on my brush. I think there's too much. It's just a tiny bit too shiny. I love it watching that happen. Types of lily lucky purple happening in there. In a little bit I'm going to go in. Also this green, I need to darken it up. I don't know whether to do it now because I can see going down is becoming a dark bluwy, greeny. Yeah, I think that's fine. I think we can start adding that color because it is, I can see a purple happening that work the purple into that. There is a leaf that comes up here, which will need more the green. So load up the brush with green. Remember we are not trying to include everything because we've got the lovely ink details to add yet. I did notice we discussed this in the warm-up that the underneath of the leaf is lighter than the other. It's already merged with the other thing. There's probably just enough here. I am going to go in again with this leaf. While there is still standing water on there, I'm going to go in with a bit more purple. I'm just going to tidy up this palette because I want to clean a peripheral, that one had a bit green mixed in with it. I want something that's of a darker value and I think it does need a little bit of blue. I'm going to add a drop of this ultra marine. Remember we are going to be adding in detail. I'm just going to add. If I bring this up to the camera, the ink is still standing on the water. If you can see that when I dabbled in, it spread very quickly because I haven't let the ink soak in as much as I would have hoped. I'm going to find another bud to try this on, where it's not standing on the surface so much. Or that one still did the same thing but I can add a bit more shape to that one and this one too. I think these might be all right, actually. I'm going to add the darker pigment going down because it seems to be right at the tip. I think if I just let it case, it's just going to be enough. There are some things happening in the background, which I will come back to. Just let me get these main florals in the foreground sorted. This one joins on like so, when I did the value study, that the green got much darker as we progress down. I think it's might be time to add a little bit of bluey purple. That was just ultra marine, and that does something like that. I want to add those florals, the bugs that are in the background. Sorry, I should have put that there. I can see it just in the background there. They don't stick out like that quite. t I think it would help provide a bit more information. So there's one, there's two over there. There's one about here that needs a little bit of green in there anyway, I like the way it did that? Just a tiny bit more yellow. I think this one. Yes I'm glad. It hadn't quite draw it and I was thinking it needs a bit of green and this one that has dried out. Never mind can add a bit of yellow there and there. Great. While I'm at it, let's add a few more of the bugs that were in the background on this right hand section about there, and there was one here. Oh, that's very nice. Don't worry too much when that happens because I think you add to the general, that one's there. I know there isn't another bud here in this negative space, but I really want to fill it up. So I'm just going to do it. I think that will do. All right, so now moving on to this much darker stem. Let's mix up. I can see almost a teeny bit of red. So I'm just going to add like a magenta to that. Let's see what happens. Yeah, that is almost it. This is still in its pad. I'm able to pick up the pad. Can you see I'm tilting it now? What I wanted to do is add water to this section here and watch it drip downwards. If I bring it a little bit closer. I love watching that happen. I'm going to add just a little bit more magenta because it's mixed up with the green, the light green bit too much. While at tiny, we're still talking about the value, this section of the stem is very dark. So I'm going in with more of the violet. I think that is really, really lovely. There really isn't very much more that I think this needs. The only thing that I think the leaf does need is a tiny bit more information. I've managed to spill some purple there. It has dried out little bit but that's fine. That's fine. I'm just going to use the tip of my brush to add some of these slight serrated edge and then it curls around like that as well. So I'm actually going to leave it right now and I'm going to use a hairdryer to dry a lot quicker than drying it naturally.
14. Demo: Delphinium - part 2: Now, I'm going to be using the Curtisward pen-holder with the mapping pen nib from Brause. Looking carefully at this delphinium, there are these little tendrils. I want to give an indication that they're there, so that is one of the reasons why I've chosen the mapping pen because it is so delicate. I feel I've done a pretty good job of giving the edges of the buds. Well, like this section here, I don't need to do much more. However, this side, I think that the contouring, the shape isn't quite right. I'm just going to enhance it by making it a little bit more like that. Also this one that's underneath. That's much better. Already the incline is enhancing it and that's how I like to use the incline. I didn't add a stem to this particular bud that falls behind it, so I'm just adding that little section now and these tendrils here as well. This is the bud that's in front of it, so just to define it and the information that is in front, I'm just going to put definite line there. I'm going to give just that little bit of information, but just behind it. I have moved myself slightly. Maybe the delphinium has been moved slightly, so I'm seeing a slightly different angle. It's all good, I can still gain a lot of information from it. The bud goes behind it like that. Although information is really important, the best way I can explain it is, is there just enough? I don't feel the need to add loads more like all the little tendrils. There are enough things happening on here where if I added every single tendril, it would just be too busy. I think I'm just going to pretend there's another bud there, there is in this version that I'm seeing now. There we go. That's nice. This one here is a little bit stumpy, lets say I am going to continue with an incline to give it a fuller shape. This area here is where the petals open up, and It's doing that sort of thing. From this area downwards the buds seem to be more formed. This little V that's happening here, that's the edge of the bud. I don't need to put an incline there. There's no need to outline every single flower or every single stem, we just want to provide enough information. It's almost like you're drawing in an extra layer of just enough information so the viewer can comprehend what is going on. I don't even know what I've done here. I seem to be at the right angle. I think I know what I did. I moved everything up so that I could fit it all in. That's fine, I know which bumps correspond to which sections now. Then this one actually extends further out, that's it. When it comes to this little point before it forms that stem. This is the one where I said, I want something behind that, so if I continue that stem that gives the impression that this stem is in front of this lemon yellow section behind it. I'm just going to draw an indication one side of the stem there, that'll do. Now I know what's going on that needs an edge there and there. There is that little thing that goes backwards, I must find out what is it's called. Then moving onto this section here where they just hinting at blooming and you can almost see the individual petals here. I think that'll do for that one. That's just opening. Coming on to the leaves, I find that young leaves don't have very much detail. That's all it needs. It just bends downwards. I haven't quite got the angle right, it's more like that. Yeah, it does that and I think I'll just stop it there. It does come back to a point here. You can tell it is a leaf, you don't need to outline it. Remember your brains worked out for you here. How do you feel that it needs to balance it out here I might add a leaf that doesn't really exist, but I think it needs it for balance. Using this leaf as reference, I'm just going to add something similar on the other side just to balance it out. I've just noticed, I know I took that leaf off, but there must have been a leaf here. It must have come off outside. I'm just copying a mirror image impression of the leaf that I can't see also the amount of paper I have left sharing through so that you can tell that they are quite delicate buds. They're not heavy until it gets to the bottom, until that stem goes very dark. If I bring it up close so you can see the final result. I am really pleased with that. I think the colors worked really well together. My favorite part is possibly this section where the stalk goes really dark, and so I added extra pigment. That is probably my favorite part, is when I'm able to add extra pigment and then watch to see what happens. I think tonally, that's just really draws your eye into it. Also, I think adding the extra pen work on the side definitely did balance it out. This was a bit of a mess. But it happened and I had to work with this. You still get the impression that this leaf is unfurling, overall I think I have done a pretty good job and I'm really happy with it. One final thing that I noticed that I really need to discuss is the use of negative space and where I have left areas of white. I haven't tried to fill in all the bad areas. If you take a look here and here, the white actually adds to the feeling that this is a delphinium that is still in bud, it's not heavy and it's not open to full bloom just yet.
15. Demo: Buddhleia - part 1: For this demonstration, I'll be using the Winsor Newton cold pressed, and if I hold it up to the camera, you'll be able to see that it is just a little bit rougher. It's a little bit to [inaudible]. This will affect how the paint runs, but I think it'll be interesting to see what happens compared to when I use the smooth and medulla. Today, we'll be using the number for coil just because we shall be painting these butterfly brushes or buddleia. As you can see, if we take a close look at these, you can see they are made out of lots and lots of tiny trumpet like blooms, but are not going to be able to paint all of these in. We are going to create a silhouette of this triangular formation. I'll show you, as I do it, what I mean, and also what I think would be really interesting is trying to capture some of the pink details. One other point I would like to mention about buddleia is when it grows in the wild, they often bends and you can see there is a slight bend in here. I know I'm emphasizing it, but you often see them doing this thing. I would like to incorporate that. They would be quite easy to do them growing straight up. But I think I'm going to start in this corner and do a bit of a curve like that, I hope. Start off mixing up some of this bright pink that I can see in there. We're going to use that as a bit of the base. I think also we are going to need a bit of a pale green up there I think first of all, start off with a pale yellow green. That's a little bit too green for me. It's all my silvery green. It's had loads and loads of water and a bit more. Yeah. That's probably better. I'm going to have that ready and because I want to mix it with some of the pink, I want to have, I think I need to have some pink ready as well. That looks about right value wise. Let's start off with the green tip. I'm going to get rid of this one because I need to be, I'm trying to use this particular version, this grain. Whoops, too much on my brush there. But let's use what just happened there. That's fine. Because we're going to be, it's going to get mixed up anyway. If you look closely, it follows this central stem that runs down in that curve. Comes outwards from there. Let's make it a bit more definite, boulder shapes. Remember, we are going to be adding pink details, so there's no need at this stage to get that tip exactly right. Moving on to the pink areas that I can see. They made these little trumpets. Let's do that too. Yeah, that mixing up a little bit and they still ping happening even to about here. Just increasing the pigment, it does seem to be much stronger as we move down and there's areas of pink here and here. Lets move in with a bit more of the purple. I've got some purple mixed up there, which I'm going to add to this pink, the opera rose. Let's go around the outside and it is an irregular. It's not, even though it is a curved triangle. It is not a straight triangle like that. It does have this gentle, pretty curve in it. That looks nice already. I can't see the stem underneath it, but I do know it goes round like that. Say pretend that there is a central stem and in the middle, it's a massive purple, but only outside you can see there's little trumpets during this social formation. Let's try and update bits, still using a mixture of pink and the purple. Towards the bottom I can see a little bit more of the green stem as well. That's going to be a nice addition. I think we need more purple here. One thing I will say is, do not cover this entire area in purple. Leave a few bits of the paper showing to give that contrast. Because even though I say it's mass of purple, it isn't solid purple. It's very textural, and that's the impression I would like to give. Working really fast and mixing up the pink and purple within, sorry, upon the page even. Say, we're almost there. Then we can move on to the stem and the leaves. I think we need a bit more powerful in here for some yes, so on this side, the value is a lot darker. Say let's add a bit more pigment there, not to all of that area. Let's leave those little gaps because I can't see bits of the stem coming down here or that looks good. Now, moving on to the stem, It is a variation of what we're seeing at the top. I think that green is just a little bit too bright. I am going to drop in some water, just plain water to dilute it down. It might mix up with some of that pink. That's all right. Actually, I just helped it along a little bit. Dilute this particular yellow down because I realized it was just a little bit too bright for me and I can see it coming down. I can see the stem from about here. Say, let's drop in a bit of, Alex, nice. There we go. Bit of green there, may be a bit too much about this not a bother and the stem starts to curve around. Or can you see that happening, can you see how that followed through the guys all the way? Round like this. The stem down here, it does a light and dark as well and this happens as well. Or just below it, the Stem branches off, there's too little substance or identity, what you call them, something like that and there's a greenie purple as well, which I will add in just a minute. Let's just put these in and there is also a leaf underneath it. This particular buddleia is very undulating. There we go. I know that's really bright green at the moment, but I am going to be adding purple to the sections. Yes, at the tips. It is a big green. Select some too much on my paintbrush. Never mind. I can incorporate these. This section here is definitely green and this is green and it starts to transform itself into a purple. Not too much, I can add in details for sure and you can see some of the trumpet type formations further down. I like that merging into the- Alex quite nice. Good. Let's try for the leaves. I can see that the underneath is definitely very pale and is of a much lighter value. I think let's mix up a bit of purple into this green I already have. Use that as the, too much of my brush. We can add a few other colors afterwards and it does this undulating thing. This one points downwards, but not too much. I think that's gone a little bit too murky, so let's drop in a bit more green. Just about here I think, there we go. Add the other leaves now. This one goes from about here. It's very pointy over there. Looking at this leaf against the stem, the stem is definitely purpley red. We need to do something about that in a little while. Let's just put this leaf in and there is a leaf that falls in front of it, but I don't think that's going to help our understanding of it. Hold on, it goes darker here, I'm just adding some purple. I'm going to start dropping in colors in little moment. There's one here, completely forgot. You see this leaf touches that one. I should have left a bit of space for that. That will be fine for now. There's little stalks coming out of there and they're very pale, with little buds and again about here. Let's have a bit of fun and start dropping in some colors in those leaves because that green, for me personally, is just a little bit too bright. Value wise, if I squint, the flowers are definitely darker, but some aspects of the leaves, especially this one here, is very dark and this part here. Let's play with that. I think this one has just merge too much. I'm going to dry my paint brush and just gather up some of that pigment because it's just too dirty. I would like the leaves to have a hint of purple, but that was just getting too weird. Let's try some Payne's gray mixed in to add the slight change in the values here. Yes, that's better. It's based on the central stem that gets dark there. I think within that it would be nice to drop in a bit of purple. This is just Payne's gray with a little bit of ultramarine. I can see the purple works well there. The leaf undulates over there and so on this side it is much darker. There we go and under here it is dark. Actually the purple buds do mingle with that. Let's drop in some purple here, needs a tiny bit more water. That looks really nice and also the purple buds. Actually, there's more purple down here than I thought. I'm going to add that in. I'm going to use a bit of the pink to help this section along because the value is slightly different here. That's much better already and I can see that the pink is trying to blend in with that leaf on the top left. I'm going to help it along. That's better already. I'm glad I made a change there. I was going to add the pale section of the leaf, but I think I'll do that with the ink, a bit of ink line. I love what's happening here, but I think it needs also to harmonize the entire piece. I think it does need a few drops of pinky purple. Let's add those. I love all this stuff happening. I might just add a bit there and also if I squint, let's say in the sections here, if I add pink in the darker sections. Also I said, I was going to add pink to the stems as well. Let's do that now. One trick that I really love to use is to tilt the paper. I'm going to drop some, it starts to go a little bit pink from here. Let's get a bit more pigment on that brush. I'm going to hold this at about a 10 degree angle, so quite shallow. But I want to drop this in and some of it is already reacting. This stem needs to be a little bit thicker as well. If you can see that it's running downwards. Just helping it along. There we go. I need to wait for this to dry and hopefully the effect is going to be rather splendid. Before I show you the close-up of this dried version of the Buddleia, another reason it's a good idea to work fast is because flowers will wilt very quickly. This one isn't too bad because it's quite woody, but some of the more delicate wild flowers will wilt within an hour, so you really have got to work quite fast. Let's take a look at this dried version. I am absolutely thrilled with what I am seeing here. There is so much gorgeousness where it has blended and it's created these lovely graduations. This area here has done what I expected. This pink has dispersed and the sections in here are absolutely stunning. I'm going to be working with the ink to just draw out some of these wonderful aspects. Because I am so pleased with how this has turned out, remember where I said in the ink section that there is no ratio, no formula for how much ink I will apply to this. This is so beautiful as it is. I think I will just pick out certain areas. We can make the most of what has transpired once it dried.
16. Demo: Buddleia - part 2: For this particular bud layer, I'm going to be using the blue pumpkin nib with the [inaudible] handle. I've chosen this one because it will give some nice blobby effects which I quite like. Starting in this section here. I'm just going to pick out these little details right here, and these are literally blobs, literally. Just paint a few of those and not all of them, just an indication and as we move down, they start to form these little tear shapes. I might add a few shapes like that as we go downwards. The watercolor has done a wonderful job, but I think it just needs a little bit more information to say that these are unopened buds and they're very small and tiny and the watercolor hasn't quite conveyed that as it is. I'm just going to use the ink to enhance. You can see there's bud light shapes here, but I think it just needed a little bit more. Again, it isn't like they go down in a straight line. It is all uneven. Let's do this. Yeah, now the longer trumpet like shapes are coming in here. I'm not following anything in particular. I'm just picking out shapes, and they still doing things like this. I don't want to do too much here, or this section here I can see that the bottom of the trumpets is, and I might work with those. They are just starting to open and they do have these three petals at the end. Yeah, about here. They start to open up a lot more. I'm looking around and thinking, where does it need a bit more information, but I might come back to it. I have to wait and assess every few minutes. Say there's a lovely blob, let just happen there. In this central section here, I think this probably getting a little bit all the buds are closing, but yesterday, it was definitely full blown. You could see that they were very open. I'm going to put in what I remember. They were four petals. Yeah, all the way down the central section. The buds were out. I might just add one more here, and then I'm going to change tactic. Say on either side, the trumpet shapes appears. This is just looking very lovely. I'm very pleased with this. I love these as they are. I really do. I know the petals aren't fully distinguished, but I think it would be a shame to spoil them. I'm going to just add a few more trumpy shapes on this side. I'm getting towards the bottom and I realize we're not filling it in. It just looks to regular here. I'm making quite a concerted effort to make this particular edge irregular. I know that there's a certain need for regularity but I don't think in organic forms, it always works out that way and on this side too, I want to make sure that the viewer understands that this was not a straight piece. Now, moving onto this section here, I am in two minds whether I want to add anything here because it is so [inaudible] together and I think the only thing that I would say is, it just needs a little edge here. I just think that would help. Yeah, I think over here as well just needs another trumpy shape. You can see I've put in the bottom section of the trumpets that really helps. I don't need filled in a little bit of the buds here. I'm going to add a little bit more. They are very delicate, so I don't want to weigh them down, and at the top they are not fully formed. I think I'm going to leave the very tip like that and then just add the mirrors hints of these little buds forming and I think that's all it needs here. These are two mini, mini buds. I started adding some and I thought all that'll do. But I don't think that reads very well. I think they need a little bit more just at the base to give it a bit more information because it's just fading into the background too much. There we go and the same again here. I started adding it half heartedly, and there's a leaf here which I think needs to be looked at. I'm really sorry to say that I did not have this particular camera running when I filled in these leaves. I thought that there was a little bit too much negative space, so I actually drew them in. I just want to demonstrate to you how I quickly drew it in on a separate sheet of paper. I do apologize for not capturing the moment that I drew these two leaves on the actual demo. Sometimes it happens. I'm going to demonstrate on just a plain piece of paper because that's what it was. I just used ink to fill the negative space. It was these two leaves I was trying to draw in and I just basically used the slight pressure on the nib. I'm pressing down a little bit harder. It is a relatively narrow leaf and it comes outwards. I need a bit more ink on this. Towards the base and then it comes in again, at a funny angle that does this business. I'm just going to pretend that there was a stem that hold on, I've got an idea. Let's just say my stem was doing this and I'll show you the other leaf. It's wavy along. This particular leaf was very wavy. This other edge wasn't and then it twisted round like so. What I also did was to draw in the veins, which I don't normally do with leaves. But on this occasion I just liked that the formation that they were creating. This is another area where you don't need to add all the veins. You may feel inclined to want to do that. Again, your mind can work out. Oh yeah, there's veins on each side and they were irregular. There we go and the same again on here. I notice that they didn't go right to the edge even on this. It's just on this version I've noticed that if I go back and show you my original, I didn't observe it properly, so I've learned something new there. Then they get a little bit thinner up here. Thank you for bearing with me. I'm going to go back and show you the bud layer. I think it's always a good idea to do a quick subjective assessment of your finished piece. Whatever piece of art it is. Overall, I adore the vibrancy that I've been able to achieve. I know this particular bud layer does not have large expanses of bright pink, almost luminous pink areas. But it was something that I picked up on within the depths of the end of the trumpet sections and I just went with it. This area balances out the purple here which is of a much darker values. There's a lovely contrast there and I'm so pleased that I was able to leave some white spaces there. I would say my favorite section is this bit here. There is a lovely harmony about it. Little things like that gives me a thrill. Overall, I like the little indications of the younger budly a stems on either side as well. Moving on to the leaves which I love seeing all that graduation and effects in the way that this particular pink has run into this leaf. I wanted to include this set of leaves. I could have left it as negative space, but I think to just balance out what was happening at the top and moving downwards, it just continues with that pyramid type theme. I think this is a really successful piece for me.
17. Demo: Queen Anne's Lace - part 1: For this demo, I will be painting queen and lays. Usually they are quite lengthy, but I found this one which was quite short in stature and I managed to pull it out with the root, which I think is quite defined. I think this would be a good challenge for me as well to fill up my moles again. Because of the delicate nature of the stems, I've decided to use the zero g-air brush. Looking at the shape quickly, we have a central stem coming below the main flower head, and it goes off at a bit of an angle, and then at the bottom we have the root, which probably takes up about a third of this whole plants, so, I think value wise, the stems are really pale and obviously the white flowers are the palest areas, so, we need to mix up a medium light wash. I think I will go for a cadmium yellow and a jade green, and let's give that a go, maybe it actually just a tiny, tiny bit of the Windsor blue. All right. Let's give that a go. The central stem is a little bit off center. I need more water in that. That's too dark in value. Just in front of it, goes to about there. There are two other miniature stems and they're even lighter, so, I'm going to just add a drop of yellow just in this part of the palette and this does a bend, it's like a an S bend. Comes down to where it gets much darker. But let's just get the main features in and also there's a miniature stem just next to it that comes to about here, and the next stem alone on the left is almost parallel actually, and there's a slight kink in it. Yeah. That's about right and then we have some leaves going on, but we'll add those in a little while, and then there's a stem on the right. Yeah. It's got a kink in it as well. They merge together like that onto the central stem, and the central stem is skew if it does that, and then we start going down into the roots, and it's a wonderful way to add a bit of color to this as well. Thinking about these little areas here, and this is the lassy part's that probably gives it that name. If I squint, I can't see them, but we have to be mindful of the white petals on top and I'm trying to work out how I'm going to do this. I am mindful that some of these stems are starting to dry already. Just put the lassy parts in. A little bit spiky. I'm a little bit nervous, I was holding it like this. I don't want to hold it like this, I want to hold it towards the end here, it will give me a little bit more maneuverability and less pressure. That's a lot better, and the little bits that go upwards are even paler. I might just put some water on that as probably a little bit of pigment left on my brush and that might be enough. Let's do the same again with some of the others and I'm thinking, how I'm I going to add the seeds, I mean, not the seeds, the actual petals even though they are tiny. I know these things are starting to dry out, so, I'm going to work super fast. Let's just get these outputs stems in and then I can add dropping different pigments and play with the values, and also coming down here, there's all leaves down here, which are very, very dark. As we're talking about leaves, the value down here is a lot darker, so, let's introduce a little bit of ultramarine there, and if I close my eyes as even, just a tiniest hint of pinky purple, so, the greatest value leaf is around about here. That'll do for now, and then the next leaf along that is of the greatest value. There's another, little bit more water on that, another frond type leaf coming about there, coming down to the root. It's becoming a little bit more brown, so, I might use some gold actually. I think that's going to work really well. Yes, that's very nice as it goes down into the root, that's going to look pretty amazing I think. Just load my brush on with just the gold, just something like that and there's a root that goes here as well. [LAUGHTER] That's lovely. We got our basics in and it's time to start having a little bit of fun with the values. Let's work quickly because I've waited probably a little bit too long, but we can work with this. I can't see orangey red if I squint, so, let's just add a bit of maroon to the green, just a tiny bit and drop it in here as well. Yes, that's lovely and the other areas where there's high value. There's actually another stalk coming from behind this frond, almost does that. It's not really that red. I can see bits of red here. I think I need to add a tiny bit of the radiant, sorry, here. I think I'm going to start adding gold. I really like how that turned out. Yes. That's lovely. Towards the top, there is this yellowy hugh. Perfect. Coming down this one as well. Let's try and merge these together. I'm going to have to tilt the sketch book in a little bit. I think that needs a little bit more water just to help things along because I'm starting to draw in the fronds, and I'm mindful that I probably let it get dry too quickly. I have been talking to you guys as well. Normally, I get into a flow state. So there's another frond that joins onto here. That looks lovely. There we go. I'm just using this gold and what moisture or standing pigment that is on the paper is just doing its thing, which is absolutely marvelous. Yes. Just double checking my details. Just picking up a tiny bit of green to add to this particular frond here. I like the way they joined up there, that's lovely. I just did it again. Very nice. Can you say where is pooled in the gutter of the sketchbook? That's absolutely fine. We can use some of the pigment that's pooled there and spread it around a bit. So there's other frond-like features. Actually, what I have just noticed is that there's probably a little bit too much pooling there. Just going to delve a bit off using my tissue. It does make four. Oh my goodness, that looks very nice. It almost looks brown, a brownie red. That's gorgeous. There's another one slightly higher up on the left hand side. Again, at the at the tip it does look a little bit golden, and that comes down. This area here, this is perfect actually. It's very serendipitous because that is the beginning of the root. You can see here it is very dark. So this is working in our favor. There's always a little voice thinking, "This isn't going to work out." If you've watched any of my other classes, I think you'll hear me discuss that when there is a phase, you go through. Almost every artist will go through, and you think this is looking a bit patterns, looking a bit rubbish. It does work out. Just keep going. You have to push through the fronds, do that. You only see the side view in this particular one. I might just leave it like that. There is another leaf there, but I think that I don't really have enough space for a star here. I'm just going to add a few more fronds here just to fill up that negative space there. Oh my goodness. Now let's take a peek at that root. I don't want too much. Again, it's all pooling there. I think I'm going to have to take the sketchbook and tilt it. No, I think I need a tiny bit more viridian because value-wise, it's not quite there. I might have to keep that sketch book slightly tilted. The root is quite thick there as well. I'm not going to fill it all in. I think that's enough there. What I do see coming off this particular root is just tiny tendrils which are so cute, and just along here as well. I now need to do something about the flower heads. Valuewise, it is absolutely the lightest parts of this plant. So I don't think that I can convey that with just using inclines. In some areas there is a hazy yellowy green. I don't want that maroon and that gold. I'm thinking that if I mix up a very light gold with just a tad of that green. Let's just put it on the darkest areas of the flower heads or just underneath where the flower goes, something like that. It's almost like an upside down umbrella shaped but irregular, let say. I think that I'm just about there. In between, there will be little pockets of darker value. Yes, I got it. Upside down umbrella and a few dots. I think that I can probably add the rest of it using ink. If I don't try, I won't know. Yes. This is dark under there, and it's the darkest that was still little bit dump, but not to worry. This flower head is a lot bigger, extends pretty much to here. There's something else happening there. Hold down. There's another tiny flower head there, so I'm just going to head to that upside down umbrella as a shape there and a few little dabs. Let's wait for this to dry and see what happens.
18. Demo: Queen Anne's Lace - part 2: They're probably still in bud, and I've pressed down a little bit hard because that's actually a frond I'm trying to depict. These go up in a little bit of a U-shape. Some of them join them there, some of them do that. I don't want to outline it. These are white, it is on a dark table. What I might do is literaly with the very tip of my nib, just give a suggestion that these little dots is the edge of where those tiny petals lie. Now, the next one along is actually, well, I've got my proportions a little bit wrong. Never mind. These parts seem to be the darkest on this particular flower. Select some of those and they're in a bit of an oval. I might need a bit of line just to help it along. I think if I define the edge of this one just to differentiate from the other stem, not behind it, but it's closer to the table. Moving on to this, the largest one. This is the only one which has open teeny petals, open. To some extent, let's try doing that. Again, I'm just going to use little dots to give me a rough indication and it does go up there, of where the edge of this flower head is. In order to help this one along, I might have to pretend I shifted my angle and add just a few. I'm trying to keep it irregular. Then, the flowers, so many beautiful ones. I'm just going to pick out a few flowers here and there. They seem to be much more in this area here because of perspective. There's a whole clump of them here. See now that I've slightly changed the angle that I'm looking at this, the little flowers extend beyond there, and they come all the way to about here. You can see little spokes with flowers at the end just here, which I think I will add, which is very nice. If I look again now that I've shifted the angle, it happens on this side as well, so I'm just going to include that just to balance out the sides. There's a stray head of petals, I think is worth including inside. Now this one, they're not open. If I close my eyes that these stalks meet, that's where the darkest areas are. They're pretty much on all of them so I might just go back here and add that too. The fronds underneath this main flower head, that they are the darkest parts but I'm wondering if I can include it in ink. Oh, that's lovely. Let's just do the whole lot now. The tips of these are especially dark. Oh, I don't know what's happening there. Something doesn't quite sit well, right? I think this needs a little bit more dots and stuff. It needs a bit more definition. If I put them on the end, if I draw them in even though I can't see them, but I need for it to read as florals on teeny-weeny stalks. See, now I'm doing my 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6th flower head. I'm in a lot better mood to understand and it only comes with time. I couldn't have known this before because I've not ever painted Queen Anne's lace. Painted similar, but know exactly. Now I've got a better handle on it, which is fantastic. I'll know that for next time, if I were to paint anymore or similar. All these bits under here are really dark. I think this paper might still be a little bit damp. No, I think we're all right. Oh, my goodness, that's lovely. I think it needs just something here to say, this part is separate from this part here. Yeah, it is very dark in there I might just use ink. Now, looking back to this first one, I said, " Oh, I think that's enough,'' but I think it needs a little bit more now. That line work is so expressive. I'm quite taking it aback. I've not done anything quite this detailed with tiny little dots, but it's been jolly good fun. Looking at the leaves I'm wondering, do I need to add a little bit? I don't want to make a decision. I know. There's this space here and I've just noticed that there is just a tiniest curly leaf just there. I'm going to include that using the ink. Lovely. This one here, it was never fully formed using the watercolor so, I'm going to add a few more bits of line, not outlining. It needs the back of it here, needs some information. Oh, that's lovely. This one here could do with a little bit more information that, there we go and that one. Very nice. I did say that there is a leaf here. Sorry, I said I didn't have room to add it but looking at it, it's very nice. I'm going to make a decision. I am going to add it here just in ink. It does bend down. It goes all the way to the root section where it gets very dark. I've got the frame work there. I'm just doing a simplified version, and obviously I will be going over some of those lines. It adds to the effect I think. Few more bits here. That's pretty good for me. Let's take another look at it. If I'm squinting, I can't quite make out the edge, which is here. I can either go in again with a tiny bit of watercolor, just to give that impression or can use ink. It just needs just the tiniest amount ink. Just like that. Just to say this is the edge. This is the outer edge of this particular flower head. Like that. Yes, I think that's quite marvelous. I've always had issues trying to define the edges of pale or white flowers and I think in this version, I've done a pretty good job using the ink to give an indication of where the edges may be. Overall, I'm really happy with the outcome.
19. Final Thoughts: We go through all sorts of stages in our artistic development and it's fun to experiment and learn along the way. This expressive watercolor and ink is just one path I happened to be exploring right now. By willing to forego some of the details, we can still tell the story of your wildflower expressively through shape, value and color and line. You can focus on the overall look and feel of your painting. Once the larger parts like the leaves and the stems are in place, the details would take care of themselves. Please trust in this process. Do your best to place your brush stroke, all lines of your ink with intention and then leave them alone. Allow the organic occurrences to happen and think of how you can use these effects to your advantage, instead of trying to correct them. Think of them as very happy accidents. Try to stop yourself from pushing forward with actions that are really not necessary. Just to remind you, I'm going to go through some top tips. Simplification is the key. Less is more. Concentrating on just essentials who help you not to fuss over unimportant details. Take risks by working wet on wet and allowing the color to fuse together on the paper rather than the pallet. Use the large brush and don't be tempted to go for a smaller brush to add further details. Keep your color choices simple. Choose just four or five colors so you don't overload your sketch with too many colors and muddy them. Try holding your brush near the middle or end rather than near the head for a more spontaneous approach. Stand back from your work from time to time to assess before moving on so you make intentional decisions. Probably the most important thing is your mindset. Approach your floral painting with confidence and try to maintain that element of fun, throughout the process. If you start wavering or feeling anxious and frustrated, please take a break and then resume. Finally, I really want to encourage you to develop your own personal creative style. Use this class and any of the other classes by me or other artists here on SkillShare as a jumping off point. Art is all about experimentation. We can all keep on developing our skills and styles, including me, by trying new techniques, new materials and pushing our own creative limits. Every artist or budding artist is a unique individual with unique talents and tastes. Every artist will have their own different sense and view of the world around them. Our role is to communicate through painting. I truly believe we can be good communicators in art and in our lives. Ruby can you please get off that, I need that. Ruby come on, [inaudible] off that. Oh my word. Ruby I need my microphone. Ruby come on that's enough.
20. Bonus: Stargazer Lily Part 1: Hello, and welcome to this
special bonus lesson. We will be painting Stargazer
lilies based on what you've learned here with the
expressive watercolor and inks. I was very fortunate that as a result of this particular
Skillshare class, organic expressive florals,
a publisher got in touch, and I now have a book called
Go with the Flow Painting. In that book, I do have
a step-by-step guide for Stargazer lilies
and I'm going to be sharing that with you today. It's my absolute
favorite flowers, so I hope you will enjoy
it as much as I did. Here are the materials
I'm going to be using for today's demo. I've got my watercolor
paper by Hahnemuhle, which is 200 pounds. Also, we have the dip pen and it has the browser
blue pumpkin nib on it. My favorite type of brush
is the quill brush. This one is by Jacksons, but I know there are many, many different types of quill brushes offered by
other art manufacturers. Also, the ink. You can use whatever
brown ink you have. I have Winsor and Newton and also this liquid acrylic
ink by Liquidtex. I want to start by showing you the structure of
this Stargazer lily, as you can see, it has six petals. This particular version, I know there's quite a few varieties, goes a little bit curly
woolly at the edges. But if you look at
the basic structure, there's three petals up front
and three petals behind it. If you want to make it easy, you can start painting
this petal first. In the middle, you
have the stamens. It is pretty bright
green in there. The pollen part is quite dark. What we're going to do
is recreate a version of it all over our
watercolor paper, it's not going to be formal. It will be quite
loose and organic. I want to start by telling you a little bit about
the colors I'll be using. Permanent rose, which I adore, but you don't need
very much of that and mixed up with maybe a
tiny bit of the Winsor red and the crimson here for the
darker parts of this lily. The leaves will be a
mixture of the Winsor yellow and the sap green. You use the equivalent. Let me show you by mixing up a tiny bit of the Opera Rose, you can see how strong it is, but you're going to
need quite a lot of this wash because we've got quite a few petals
to be painting in. I like to pick up a lot
of water on my brush. That's one of the reasons
why I use a quill. Let's get started. Starting with the first petal, going to work pretty quickly. You can see how I've just
laid that down by using a single brushstroke
and we just want to create a teardrop shape. Be mindful to leave a
little bit of white. You don't want to fill
in the entire petal. That's probably enough for now. We're going to have
another one down here. Just thinking about
the space that's going to use up about here. I wanted to show
you a close-up of how much standing water
is on these petals. You can see how the
water has already soaked in on the first set of
petals that I painted. This one, there is an awful lot and there is a
purpose for that one, so I start dropping in
the rest of the pigments. Now we've got the initial, first three petals
of each flower down. We're going to add the
petals that lie behind it. These are a little bit smaller, but they can extend
out a little bit. Don't let it touch
the first set of petals just so that the pigments don't get
too merged together. Especially as I'm going
to start dropping in a lot more pigmented wash
in just a little bit. You can see I'm
working quite fast. We're just dealing with
shape at the moment. I need to wait for
some of this to soak into the water
because there's just a little bit
too much happening. If I were to add
the pigment now, it would just go everywhere. Also, one of the things
that I need to be mindful of is I'm filming
this in winter, even though the
central heating is on, it's a little bit colder
than what I'm used to. This might take a little
bit longer to dry. Wherever in the world you are, what time of the year
you are painting, it's something that you will
pick up with experience. You will learn to read your
paper the more you practice. You'll know when
the right time is to drop the next
set of pigments. I'm going to do another set of petals just in
this space here. Personally, there is a little bit too much
standing water on this one. I'm going to just use
a kitchen roll to soak up some of that because I'll be waiting
around forever otherwise. Now let's pick up the crimson
or the permanent rose. You can see already how much more pigment
and vibrant that is. We're going to create the
line that goes down there. [inaudible] looks
gorgeous, or you can just go a straight
line down the middle. It just really depends from
one lily to the other. They're all slightly different depending on which shop
I've bought them in. You can see this one where
I've left the white space, I'm going to have to paint
just a little bit around it. You can see how the pigment has spread within the
areas which are wet. This one, it was not so wet, it was probably drying out
a little bit too much, so it hasn't spread that
much compared to this one where you can see there is still a lot of water on that surface, so it spread out rather a lot. This is one of the
things that you will pick up with experience. Let's carry on with these. I've completely missed
out on the petal here. Quickly paint that one in. There's too much
wash on that brush. That's all right, I've
saved it. It's fine. Now, let's go back to the slightly more
pigmented heavy pigment. Here we go. See that one isn't going to spread out because
it's just dried too much. If you turn your
head to the side, you'll be able to
see whether it's damp or the different
stages of the drawing. It's really a matter
of you gauging when to add the next set of pigments, because after this we're
going to be adding the green. Now, we're going to mix up the green that's going
to go in the middle. Also, start to do a few, actually, I've got
this space here. What I'm going to do, I
think just to fill up that space as a side view
of one of the lilies because also it's nice to have
an odd number on the page. I think a bit more wash on that, we do a shape like
that and then it fans outwards like so. Going back to that
green before I forget, so that's my lemon yellow. I'm going to add a tiny drop of the sap green. Looks great. We're going to drop it
in the middle of each, or can you see how that's
just gone into the pink, which is absolutely fine. That one's going
to look delicious. Oh, that's going to
look really nice. I can see it spreading in
amongst the pink already. It's going to look glorious. This one here as well. I think the underside
of this does go green. I'm going to just pop that in underneath and finish
off this one as well. We need to look at
adding some buds. Again, filling up
this negative space. I think one could
probably go here, and maybe there's
room for one here. Let's add those now. We're going to
create those just by long strokes downwards onto, there's going to be
one maybe about here. Brilliant. Now we're in, we can fill it up
the remainder of the space using leaves
and some stalks. Please don't worry too much
about the pigments mingling. I personally love seeing all the pigments merged
together like this. It's one of the beauties
of working this way. There is an element of the unexpected because
it's not until they are fully dry that you will see how the watercolors
behaved and you have to let go of being
able to control exactly what your water and
your wash is going to do. It's very freeing. Please enjoy this
part of the process. Without getting too technical because I don't pretend to
be a botanical illustrator. We do need to join these flowers together so
that they're not so random. If I pretend that
there's a stalk here, and there's a stalk here. This one, [LAUGHTER] I like the way it's
just spread in there, we'll join onto this one. Come down here and
this one joins up and it will emerge at the
bottom, around about there. Before I forget, you join
up with this bud here. Perfect. This bud will join up with this
particular flower. It will emerge like so. I think actually
I've got room for another bud here or
a leaf or something, but I quite like to put bud
there because I forgot that I need to add a little
bit of the pink color. Just some of the buds have them, some of them don't. But I don't want to
miss out on some of the lovely spreading around
that can happen as well. You can see it just
happening there. Love it, and also there. You don't have to include
it for all of them. But I personally love seeing
a little bit of that. Again, just a very light wash, just on one side normally. Now we can concentrate
on some leaves. Going back to the green
leaf can come off here. Also, if it was emerge here, went behind this bud, let's say, and then emerged out the
other side. That'll be good. The leaves could
get a little bit larger at the bottom so
that proportionally, they look a little bit heavier, and I fill up this
space here as well. I know it looks really
bright at the moment, but we are about to add
a little bit more of the sap green and
drop that in as well. That's probably a little
bit too concentrated. Just at that stem
there on the side of that leaf is very light. I'm just literally just touching the leaf with the tip
of my brush like so. I'm not pressing it down. Now, we have a few
gaps here and here, and also probably
just about here. We have a choice of adding extra leaves or
putting more buds in. I think here it needs
a bit more green. I'm going to pretend
that there's a leaf that had come in from here. It's emerging from behind
this petal. That's good. Probably same again here. Now I think the buds are going to take up space
towards the top. Love the way it's merged together like that,
that's gorgeous. What else did I say? Should I do a little one here? Yeah, you're fine. Just
do a really faint one. It may be a little bit
more yellow in that one. Lovely. I think we're
pretty much there. I have to let this dry. I have always used a hairdryer since I used to be
an in-house artist for Hallmark and we're always
under a lot of pressure [LAUGHTER] to get the cards presented to Marks
and Spencer's. If you do use a hairdryer, don't have it on a
very strong setting, otherwise it will just
spread everywhere, so quite a gentle heat.
21. Bonus: Stargazer Lily Part 2: Now that the watercolor
has fully dried, we can appreciate how the pigments have really
mingled together. Look at that green against the pink and if we
cast our eye around, this is actually one of my
favorite paths just to take a quick break and really
appreciate what's happened here. The pigments have just
gone with the flow, literally gone with
the flow and done their own thing and I can't wait to start adding a
little bit of ink detail. Now for the inking part and
I like to describe this as a crazy trust exercise
because often people want to outline the entire thing and that's not
really my approach. Other people do do that, which is absolutely fine but I want to take on a more
intuitive approach. If we look at the
example that we had, you can see that this
particular petiole extends right out like that. Even though my
watercolor ends there, I want to extend my
ink line to there. If we do that and it's
not going to be perfect, that is enough to give the impression that
petal is in front. We need to do a little
bit of mindfulness here, letting the viewer know which of these
petals is in front. This one, you can pretend this
white is part of the edge. Let's say that extends
all the way to here. I know it's going over a
little bit of that green leaf, but I'm not too
worried about that and we need to also
let the viewer know that it actually is
in front of this petal. That's why I've added
the ink line there. I don't want to add
too much detail to the petals at the back. Although I would like
to extend this one. One of the great things about the dip pen is if you
vary the pressure, you can just create a very thin line like that
and that's all I want really. With each one, we know
that there's statements, so I'm going to add that now. Not all of them, but
there's probably about 10 in my particular example, but I don't know how
many is going to fit in here and there's this
pollen at the end. Maybe just one down here. I'd quite like to add one here because there's a
little bit too much negative space there. Now, I've got a real
thing about that. [LAUGHTER] Now, we need
to add the markings, the distinctive markings like the dots that we see down here. Pressing down harder
will mean that you will get larger dots like
that and you can either just press down like that or you can create
little circles like so. In my reference,
most of the dots are towards the middle of the flower and I'm adding
them quite randomly. I'm really sorry, this part of the video is a little
bit out of focus, but we're pretty much using
the same approach as before, where the watercolor and
ink is a partnership. I think this two-step
approach alleviates some of the over-working that
I sometimes encounter. The ink doesn't have to follow the contours of the
watercolor that you've laid down so it can work
independently if you think it needs adjusting
or to communicate better. There is no fixed ratio
of watercolor to ink. It is a very organic process. I do vary the amount of ink that might be needed from
one piece to the next. I really like to
use it to emphasize contrast as the density and weight of the line
really helps to communicate areas of
light and shadow. When beginner start, it can be a little bit
awkward using ink. We have to learn to vary the pressure when we
are creating strokes so that the lines are infused with more dynamism and to
bring them to life. I do think ink
will help you with confidence and patience because you have to be very mindful of every mark you put down
because unlike graphite, if you were to make
a mistake with ink, you either have to
figure out how to cover it up or to accept it. I really do think it's worth practicing on a separate
piece of paper, a scrap piece of paper, and just find out how your
particular dip pen works. I'm really pleased with
how this turned out. The colors are beautiful together and the line work
is still really expressive. It tells a story. I haven't had to
outline too much, although I have made
a few blobs here, but that's all right. It happens with ink, let's just embrace it. You can see in this
area here there is an awful lot of ink
that I've placed on there and it really
adds to the contrast, the delicacy of the petals, but also the very
vivid markings. Yes, I did drop a little
bit of ink in that corner. But I really hope that you
have enjoyed this demo and you'll be painting your own
version of these lilies. If you do, please
use the hashtag, ohnmargowiththeflow
and I would be so thrilled to see your version. Have fun with this and
just really relax into it, enjoy this entire process. This is to let you
know there are several floral projects in my
book go the flow painting, including one for douglass asda, peonies, and also
cherry blossom.
