Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi everyone. And event cinema I hear there's just so many different ways that you can use creative briefs and get inspiration when you come to have that, what if you're starting with a blank flight that you want to grasp the attention of publishers, licensing companies. You want them to pick your artwork to put on the product. I'm going to show you how you can gain inspiration just from a blank sheet of Canvas. And we're going to select colors. We're going to pull colors. We're going to create our own creative brief, right down to the colors, to the subject, to the style, and what kind of room or setting we want to create this collection with them. And once I guide you through that, we're going to start creating or building our collection based on that inspiration. These are techniques that you can use in your own artwork. And I know we're using a style or maybe subject matter that I would use in my artwork because that's what I do. But just because I'm giving you the subjects or style or inspiration that we're using in these courses. I want you to practice using it with your own style and inspiration. And when you do your research after you take my course, because I do want you to pre, along with me. But I'm giving you those tools so that when you're done this course, you can do it on your own. So what you'll do is you'll practice using my techniques to create your own artwork and your own collection. So we're going to jump right into it. The first part is going to be IRB research. Like always, we always have to do content research, trend research, color research. And we're going to compile that into our own vision board that we will use when developing this collection. And like everything that I do, it's going to be step-by-step. The beauty about these courses. You can pause, take a breath in, and just kinda do it step-by-step. There's no pressure. Do it at your own time and when you're ready, just move along to the next lesson. We're gonna get started.
2. Creating Your Own Brief: Okay, we're gonna get started here with our creative brief. And what we're gonna do is pull up Pinterest. Pinterest is a great place for getting inspiration on current trends. It is the place you want to be searching to get ideas and inspiration for your collections. What I like to do, and you've seen me do this in my previous classes is a, we are going to search up some decor trends. And with this course, I'm going to do a projection for 2022. So I'm going to look up decor trends for 2020 to, to see what kind of inspiration I can pull up in creating our next collection here. It's really important for you guys to know that I have no idea what I'm going to be creating for us. Collection with you guys. So this is, you are actually participating in my creative process to see how I get inspired. And because we're artists, everything is visual. So this is a great way just to connect and get inspired through visual contact content. So I'm looking at a few things here. There's a lot of ideas that I like, there's a lot, but what I want to point out is this trend right here. So I'm going to pull this up because you're going to see this all over Pinterest. And it's very helpful, especially if you're starting out and you're just kind of a little stuck. But what's beautiful about it is it has a whole vision board creative for you. So you've got all your colors and then a little elements. It's showing a little bit of a decor theme. It looks a little bit modern, but it sets a trend. I know I'm going up and down and they're calling this eclectic folk. I see a little more mid-century modern. Maybe they have a more contemporary twist on it. But I'm going to save it. I'm going to save it to my designing trends. I have a folder within Pinterest where I put all my inspiration and I'm just going to save it in there. And what I'm gonna do is just continue saving anything I like, anything that captures my eye, anything that I think is a nice palette to work with. Now, you're going to have your favorite colors. I have my favorite colors. And I do have a little bit more of an advantage here because I do work within the industry and I know what colors are trending, I know what colors are turning for next year. So I'm kinda building off of that, but really it is right here in front of you if you see it on here. And it's a trend, it's happening nouns, so you've got nothing to lose. These trends usually lost a few years. They're rolling to the new season. So you don't have anything to lose here, just start pinning things you like. And then I'm just going back because I will go back and forth. As you remember, I clicked on a pin and I started researching what was within that pin. So I'm just going back to 2022, decor trends. And I'm going to scroll through and see what else they have. And I'm going to look at color palettes. I'm looking at designs, just anything that captures my eyes. Maybe things that I see is a little bit unique. So I'm going to pin this one because it's got some beautiful colors in it. And this one too and has a lot of different colors. So what's great about these kind of things? When you see so many colors as you can actually just select a couple of colors within that trend to work with. And picking colors right away is really going to kind of get you inspired about what subject you're gonna do. So I still have no idea what I'm going to paint for this collection. As promised, you are following this process with me. So as you scroll down Pinterest, you'll notice some other little sidebars with, you know, 2022, interior decorating or color trends. Don't be afraid to click on those. It's just going to bring you to a whole nother board with a whole lot of inspiration, you cannot go wrong and just start pinning everything and anything that captures your eye. There is no right, no wrong. Just start pinning things that you love to look at. And don't be afraid to go down those rabbit holes. Click on these, discovering all these new little things that I probably wouldn't think of typing in the search bar. So it's right there for you. It's going to give you everything to do with the decor and design. And I'm pinning more, I'm pinning more. I'm going into various things sometimes because then as you scroll down, you get similar content. So if you like these inspiration that have images with all the colors picked out, click on them because you will find a way more within that section. Okay, so I'm doing another search here. I'm just going to continue with design ideas or decor trends 2020 year. Just continue searching. If you don't find what you're looking for, just keep plugging away and scroll down. It's hit or miss. Like, I love seeing these little decor items, you know, I know it's fall. It's not really what I'm looking for, but it's a great example if you are doing seasonal decor, to kind of hone in on that, I probably should append it to four next seasonal items that are coming up. So when you're looking for inspiration and ideas, just continue doing various searches. Use words like decor trends, design, interior design, colors. And another great thing is to look at fashion trends. But here I'm clicking on the hottest interior design trends for 2021, 2022, because that's what I'm looking for. I'm going to pin it. And I think I'm going to check out this article. I like to kind of skim through and see what's hot. It's usually created by designers. So you're not gonna get a lot of art ideas, but you will get ideas on how homes are decorate, being decorated this year and going into 2020. So this will give you a little bit of a picture on what kind of art you want to create for these homes. So just kind of gives an idea of fresh decor ideas. I mean, here's a fun one that is eclectic. It's bold. It's a modern trend that is resurfacing. And then look at this rod cero with a little bit of industrial look. I mean, things are coming back. Oh my gosh, kitchen cabinets, wood is coming back. Mid-century. Modern is resurfacing a lighter floors, wood cabinets. I mean, you're gonna see this trend pop. So we're going to have quite a bit of Modern Art and simplistic art coming, coming up too. So here's a good idea just to explore the design world and see what's happening moving forward. And there's so many different, I mean, every designer is a little bit different. So even though you're looking through this and you're seeing these trends, there are so many more trends out there. I mean, there, there are usually dozens or coupled doesn't trends that move forward into following years. And then there's, you know, a few special ones that are showcased for a couple years. So there really is art for everything. But I just want to give you visual ideas so you can see my process here. So I'm really absorbing and just taking in the decor trends here. They talk about painted doors, you know, adding pops of colors. So you've got a pretty neutral room, but look, we've got teal doors happening and these beautiful mustard color chairs where everything else is pretty neutral and you've got a lot of various would tones. So this really, I mean, you're leaving so much open when it comes to wall art. These big bold pops of colors, large shapes, that kind of thing is really popular moving forward. And then people are moving back into colored walls. I mean, we've gone white for so long, but we've got some bold colors coming back. We've got look at this Nantucket blue. Think I've just painted my kitchen island this color. So it's pretty cool to see that that's trending forward. You still see some clean white. So there's a little bit of everything and it's a really good just to research and explore. I'm not going to go more into the design world here. I just kinda wanted to click on and this article so you can see how I kinda get a picture of what homes are going to be looking at moving forward. Okay, so let me take you on a wild goose chase here. This is something that most people don't think about and this is a big trick for me when I am looking, forecasting to core trends, looking at fashion trends. Now, in reality, I could be looking at 2021 fashion trend so that I can get ideas on what kind of art is going to be. You know, popular in 2022, 2024. So the secret in forecasting trends is to follow fashion. Home decor trends always, always follow the fashion trends. And when you see trends happening in fashion, you can expect to see, you know, like the fabrics and the colors. Expect to see that in home decor about two years after surfaces in the fashion industry. So I love to just go in and see what's happening and see if I can correspond it a little bit into my art. And the reason BY is in the licensing industry, your buyers are buying for the following season. So whatever you create for wall art this year will not end up in stores until next year. So they're usually buying about a year in advance. So it's good to kind of forecast some trends so that when your work comes out and stores, they are current and your licensing partners. We'll be inspired if you can come up with some new trends that the buyers are really interested in. So I'll always go in and I'll pull some fashion trends and I'll start pinning and saving and get in spot inspiration for color palettes. There's a little bit more of an in-depth process to this. Knowing the colors of home decor there is kind of a pattern. A lot of the times you don't start with one color palette and then totally flipped to something completely opposite. There's usually a transition. So there's similar colors, but the shades and tones will change. So because I have knowledge of these trends, and I think here I'm pulling up an example of something that I don't think we'll end up in home decor. Looking at the colors. And this is a fashion trend. There might be elements, but I don't see the purple and orange being together in decor. It it it was it was tried in the past and it was complete failure. That was probably, I don't know, 12 years ago, maybe 10. But it just doesn't seem to be a popular combination when it comes to home decor. So I'll know when to really dismiss a couple of colors that I think, yeah, they look great and patterns and fabrics and dresses, but it just doesn't work in the home. So when you're starting out, it might be wise to stay safe. Here's a perfect idea of some beautiful color palettes for home decor. And just explore patterns like this right now, this is a hot color trend and home decor, these blues, just cool blues variation of blues. And then these mustards to this palette is, this palette right now is, is booming in home to court currently, like the mustard yellows and we've got some flowers and all that kinda stuff. And blues Boone never go out. Your variations of blues will change. But you know, there's a big market for coastal and low country decor. And those are the blues. It's just a matter of what kind of subject that you're using for those blues. As long as I have been licensing art, there has always been a blue trend. It's just the variation of colors will change. Okay. So moving forward, you do not want to miss or dismissed the obvious and that's searching art trends. So I'm gonna do a search for 2020 to art trends to see what kind of things are popping up in art. And you will get, I don't know, Ray of a lot of different things. So start pinning, start getting inspired. You know, I find it. It's funny how these patterns are coming up. Fashion stuff. It's almost like Pinterest is seeing what you're trying to look for. And it'll stick within that range. So just keep scrolling through. You're bound to find something that you like. And as I do this, I get ideas of first subject. And if I don't see what I'm looking for, I'll just change my, my search. You know, I'll look for art prints, wall art, that kind of thing. Oh, this is, this simplistic decor is another one that spin trending for. So what I've done so much in this decor style, so I'm just going to pin it because, I mean, it seems to be something buyers want. So I'm going to pin, might not be creating with that style right now, but I am literally just going to start pinning art. That I see as interesting, that I know is trending these bold shapes, these patterns abstract, these sort of things. I just want to pin because I want to start getting inspired. And I haven't quite gotten there yet. I'm still dig in and I'm still exploring and it will hitch you when you see it. And perhaps a while I'm doing this, you've seen something that piqued your interest that is going to get you inspired. So again, I am just, I'm pinning, go crazy pinning. I am going to find exactly what I want and it is going to click in a minute here. Remember I was telling you about the sunflowers. Look at this. We've got yellow, this mustard color. Oh, I see some beautiful global inspiration down there. I really hope this global trend kicks off moving forward because it was a beautiful one. But these yellows and the sunflowers are already in the decor market, especially with it being fall. So you'll probably see it all the way moving into next year, spring and summer. So hold on to that and keep that in the back your mind. Oh, I loved this wallpaper. Wallpaper is another one of my favorite ways to get inspiration. And the reason why I like looking at wallpaper is because there's so many different elements in wallpaper. It's a repeat pattern. Oh hello HARQ. I think I've got my inspiration. I impending this. Okay, So this is something I haven't done in a long time. I've done tropical, I've done birds, but I am definitely going to be using birds as subject in this collection. Then I'm going to create with you, I just saw this image and it just clicked, it clipped. And I'm going to find a way to do it in a manner that's a little more sophisticated and simplistic. So now that I, I kinda have an idea, my subject, I'm going to do a search for birds, so I want to start pinning various birds so I can figure out exactly what I'm gonna do and literally just keep pinning pin, pin, pins, save images, save inspiration. I don't know what birds yet. Something is going to capture my eye. So I'm just going to keep scrolling. Oh, there's couple of things that I really liked care. First of all, let's cue this parents. I'm not going to do parrots though. I've done them before. But I really like this pattern. I like come up, I like, like the, the, the illustration. I like the simple botanicals. So that's resonating with me. I'm probably going to do a search on botanicals here in a minute because I know I want to incorporate this. Oh, this is such beautiful wallpaper too. So I love to pin wallpaper and fabrics. Let's take a look care. Yeah, I'm going to pin that. It's really pretty. I just loved the simplistic elements. So I know I'm going to be designing something that's clean and simplistic using birds. And the reason why I'm doing that is I really want a sophisticated field to this collection while I'm seeing lots of farmhouse, low contrary home. And, and it's interesting. I'm trying to find my, my pin place. I don't know why it pinterest has changed everything and they are just like having you pin from this and it doesn't show the proper thing. Oh, okay, this is interesting. Nordic style. I've done so much Nordic work. And this is not what I would consider Nordic. But I guess I never thought of Nordic in the spring or summer time. I always think of it winter and it has a really clean and simple feel with usually blacks and whites and grays and sometimes there's a little pops of red in there. But yeah, regardless, I love that feel I like how there's like mixed leopard pattern and palm trees, which I've done a lot of AP, but really just seeing like the different textures together inspires me. Okay. Moving on here, I need more inspiration for my collection. So S1, take a look at these art trends. Art print turns right now I'm seeing the see how there's just so much simple art. So. Even though there's bold colors coming up for next year, they are really still keeping it simple with the designs. So I think you'll see a lot of this but with bolder colors. So I'm pretty convinced this is the direction that I'm going to go in with this collection. This is awesome. Okay. I, this is kind of like the vision that I had. If you can look at this, these paintings, see how there's some plastic. There's a lot of negative space. There's beautiful colors. I envision something like this. But with the birds. And this is a great color palette to it really is. It's trending now. Moving forward into fall, this is a great palette. How adver, all m, g. I love this color palette even more and I am pinning it. And there it is. I found the inspirational color palette for my next question. No, not that I'm pinning because I like it to just a minute here. Yep, this is that I love at the mustard with the yellow, the pink, Oh, the yellow, pink, gray, dark gray. This is perfect. And that gray is like he can see hints of teal. Okay, so I've got my color palette I pinned at. Now, I'm searching for a botanicals because I want to put elements of botanicals with the birds. I need some simple elements to tie in this collection. So I'm just gonna start pinning things that I like. I'll usually pin little illustrations. And so I'll just pin, just keep pinning because I don't know what I'm going to use. I'm still just building inspiration. These mushrooms are pretty cool. Maybe I'll put mushrooms. I don't know. If I don't, I might use it for something else. I mean, it's just good to pin things that peak your interests, things that you like. There's no amount that you should or shouldn't pan. Just try to pin everything that you like and see because you're probably bound to use it in one of your other collections. Okay, Now that I'm confident that I'm going to use birds, I'm just going to go in and do a little and start saving some little birds that I like. So that when I start planning the collection, I've got lots on hand. Because right now I have no idea what kind of birds I am going to o. This is really cool humming birds that might be a good one. And a pin that see what else there is another hummingbird. Okay, I must be drawn to the hummingbirds. I'll probably look back at the illustration too, just to see some different compositions that they might have. I'm just pinning what I like. And I'll go back and forth like this. I'm going to check out but to chemicals again because now that I'm kind of thinking hummingbirds, I want to maybe incorporate some more fruits and berries with some flowers. Kinda where membrane's going at right now. So I'll go in, pin a couple extra things that I like. And then when I'm set, these are really cute simple flowers too. Then we will start kinda thinking about our collection. But before we do that, what I wanna do next is compile all these images. I'll pull up my board and I'll start copying and pasting the images that I like into a Word doc. Okay, So before I get into creating the vision board and word and the color palette, I just, I went back to Pinterest and I wanted to get a little bit more inspiration for birds and botanicals because I just didn't find I had enough and I'll always do this. I'll kinda get an initial idea. And then I'll go back and I'll just and create a pin, pin more images for more inspiration. Plus, once you guys get my vision board, I didn't want you to think go event. I didn't see you pin all these images. So that's where we're at. 0 is, I'm going to show you how to create the color palette for our vision board. And I'm using a Photoshop. Photoshop is my best friend for everything that I do. My inspiration for the color palette is this trio of paintings that I pulled up. So basically I'm just creating squares in Photoshop. And then I'm going to use the eyedropper tool to select the colors that I like within this collection so I can pull them as inspiration and use it for my color palette. So I'm going to go in and do this for every color that's in there. Well, not every I mean, there's definitely variations of all the different colors, but I'm going to pull the ones that I like. Definitely the mustard. We've got some mold and we've got a beautiful light, like cashmere pink. And I love the gray, the deep gray that they've used in this color palette because you can see undertones of teal, but it's still great. It's just not quite teal. So this is going to be a really beautiful collection. And then I'm going to pull up the lighter gray. And I'm also going to use white because it is going to be a fresh feel. And you know what's funny because as you build these color palettes, you will realize what season that this color palette belongs in. And I definitely see it for spring. Moving into a spring, it might not be 2022, might actually be for 2023 the following year, but I've forecasted the color trends so far in advance, so we're going to be okay here. So I like to kinda line up all my colors like little swatch, only have one more to add here. If you actually double-click on the square like I'd been doing, it'll copy the box exactly. And then you just have to go to the layers over on the right there and double-click the layer you just pasted. And you'll be able to select a color from the image. Now I'm just cropping the image off because I don't need it. I've got my colors. I'm going to flatten the layers. And then I'm going to save the document as a JPEG. And I'll be able to put it with my files and import it into a word with the rest of my inspirational images. Okay, so here is my Word document where I plug in everything that I collected for inspiration. I know it's already here. I figure you guys, hopefully you know how to plug stuff into Word. If you don't, you just need to either copy and paste the file into Word or the image, or you can save it to a folder and just import the images. So what I'm doing is because I didn't really organize it when I plug everything in. So you guys can see how I'm doing this. I'm going to try to organize it. So I've got all my birds together and then I'll put all my like wallpaper and patterns together. And then I'll put all my botanical illustrations together. So I'm just literally organizing it in a Word document. I'm not doing anything fancy here. I am just laying it out. So when I go to plan the collection and I'm going to draw the images. In preparation for painting. I have all my birds together, all my botanicals, and then my inspiration for like patterns or backgrounds altogether. And I'm not missing something because sometimes I'll do that, I'll just pin a bunch of stuff and then after I'll be like, Oh, this is really cool inspiration. I didn't use it, but everything all works out anyways, so that's what I'm doing here. I am just literally trying to organize everything on the paper so it's readable. And then once I have everything the way I like it, I am going to save the file. I'm also going to save it as a PDF because I want to make that resource available for you guys. So you'll be able to print this off and use my inspiration board. Because German, the process I just want you to create with me, get inside my head, create with me so that you guys can get a feel of what it's like and just know it. As you've seen me create this process of the vision board, it's not instantaneous. I don't know right away what I'm going to paint until I start seeing all the images, seeing colors, kind of formulating everything in my brains. So it is a journey and I'm glad you guys are able to join me and in that journey so that it can help you when you're on your own and you go to plan your own collection. Now, I think, you know, as I review this, I'll see things that maybe I don't really need. So I end up taking, I do, I end up taking a set of the birds out, these ones because I figure they're kinda too cutesy and I'm going from more opulent like a sophisticated collections. So I don't think these birds are going to work for me this time. So I'm just going to eliminate them and use what I have here. I've got plenty. I'm just adjusting all the sizes so that everything fits on two sheets. I don't want really more than that. Unless I really have to. You know, you can crop some of the negative space out and just ONE in on some of these images. But I really loved the loose line illustrations. I might actually use that in my collection. So it'll be interesting to see what we have right now and what we end up with as far as a collection. And pretty much it, That's how you build your creative brief. So I'm just going to print this off. So I haven't on hand for when we start creating our collection. And I'm going to save a PDF copy for you guys so you can have that available when we're creating our collection 2 and we're ready, we're done our brief, we're done our research now we're going to have fun. We're going to get ready and paint our collection.
3. Supplies: Okay, Let's briefly speak about the supplies needed for this class. I, here, you see me cutting down my watercolor paper. I typically buy watercolor pad that is 18 by 11, and then I'll cut it down so that each sheet is 9 by 11. So I just basically cut in half. And I always have a selection of brushes on hand. These are just some of my favorites. They range from a one to three. I use pretty small brushes, and that's because we're only using nine by 11 paper. I have a pencil and eraser on hand, something to mix your paints in and bucket of water so you can wash your brushes off. I always like to have paper towel on hand as well. And of course you're going to have a selection of pains. These aren't the colors we're using. We are going to go through that in detail in the next lesson. But of course I have a variety of paints here and different brands. They're just my favorite. And make sure you have your creative brief and we can get started.
4. Selecting Paint Color: In this lesson, I'm going to be showing you how we pick our paint colors for the collection based on the brief that we created and the colors that we pulled from the scheme we like. So the first thing I like to do is just get a scrap piece of paper. And this is a piece of watercolor paper, but it's a scrap piece of paper that we're going to use to place our colors. So I've gone ahead and pulled some colors that I have on hand. I do have a vast array of colors available because I do paint a lot. So I picked a couple of yellows that I think are close to that color. A couple of paying such kinda went through my paints. And what I'm going to show you is I'm going to put samples of this color down on my paper to see which one fits it best for our collection. And then we'll figure out which one we go or which one we actually go with on us. And I'll let you know the actual paint colors as well. So here I'm beginning with the mustard yellow, and I'm just putting two different ones down so I can see which one I like the best. The one on the 11 or 11, the one on the left, I find this just a little too bright. So I end up going with the one on the right. And I'll go over this again, but it's yellow Oxide. And I use the brand acrylic paint, their craft paint. But, uh, there are, you know, the one that I tried, It was very similar. I got it from my goals. It's a cheaper paint. I think that's why it's so much brighter. It's more liquid and watery, so it appears brighter on the paper, but what I recommend is 0 and this one is called Plum swayed, and it's the Deco art brand. So this one I also owe most of my paints I'll get from my Goals Hobby Lobby or Blick. My favorite paints come from black, but their colors are very limited, so have to kinda go outside the box there. But the plum color is called Plum swayed. And anything that you find it is a mauve color. So anything that you can find similar. And then the pink that I end up going with is called rose pink and that's a folk art. The number is actually 632. If you want to look for it. When you go to the store and hearing him just testing with a little bit of white on top so I can see when I lighten up that color, if it ends up being that light pink, like the one that I'm trying to match there. And I'm very picky about my colors because first of all, the plumb, it has a cooler tone to it. So the pink, I want to compliment here, has a cooler tone as well. And it has a blue undertone. Some of the pinks will have more of a yellow undertone, it's brighter, so just, you know, be mindful of that when you're picking your colors. I tried to get as close as I can to these color schemes only because it's really important and home decor. Now, things can get adjusted in Photoshop if you find it too bright. But I tried to, tried to stay true to the colors. Now, I want to remind you too that this is a color palette that I like to work with. You guys. I definitely would like you to try this color palette and work with me on this collection. But when you move forward in your color picking, I really want you to kind of focus on the colors that you love to work with. Everybody has their signature colors, and there's a lot of my signature colors in here. I use this yellow Oxide a lot. I use grays, T-cells, and pinks a lot as well. So the mold, I don't use that often and that's why I was excited about it. So I'm able to kind of stick it into my color palette. But this, So this great, wonderful. It's so hard to find a gray that it has like a teal undertone. And that's what this 11 has, its medium gray, It's folk art. And the numbers 29, 35. If you're interested in that, this is a very hard great shoe match. I thought I was going to have to actually make the color, but I happen to it and I have very little left in my bottle, but I lucked out there. Okay. So I'm trying a French gray here. And I mean, it's it's okay. It's a pretty good one. But this green scape, I love because there is like a sage undertone. So it, it really complimented well, and I end up using the green scape. And I'm using the folk art, It's number 25, 000 if you want to use that one. And then of course we always need a white. I just use white. I'm using folk art brand. You can use any white that you have. You'll see me typically use a cream, but in this one I'm going White. Again. I like to add white to colors to see if I can match the color pretty close. And then what happens is I can use so many different shades of that color, right? So it, it, on the screen, it looks like the one on the right. The green is not as close to the gray as the other one, but when I actually put it on top of the color palette, It's a pretty identical match. So here are the colors that we will be using. Make sure you add a white and to your mix because we will be using white and here we have it. We've got our color palette. We picked our paints. I'm showing you the ones that I selected here. I ran off the names. I'll tell you one more time. It's yellow Oxide, plum swayed, rose, pink, medium gray, and green scape. And there we have it. Those are the colors we are using for this entire collection. Now we can get started building our collection.
5. Planning The Collection: For this lesson, we are going to be a planning or collection. And the first thing I like to do when I'm planning a collection is play with the color palette and kinda figure out what paintings within the collection. I'm going to use certain colors for. So make sure you have your creative brief or your vision board available, the one that we created together. And I have provided that for you as a reference. And I also like to have little pieces of paper. This is watercolor paper. We are using the nine by 11 paper that I did in the beginning. But what I also like to use is just little strips. And I've got 14. I'm planning to do a collection of five paintings. And so I have a strip for each painting. And what we're going to do is put a little bit of each color on our palette here. And what I'm going to play around and figure out, okay, you know, for painting one, these are the colors we're going to use for painting two, et cetera. Because when you are planning a collection, you don't necessarily have to use all the colors in every single painting. I have done this in the past. You've created so many collections with me. If you have taken my course, even the first part of this course, you've already painted a collection and I did show you how to kind of use the paints differently. So the, each individual painting has a different look. This one's going to be a little more cohesive, but we're not using every single color. You don't need to use every single color. They just want to, when you're done the collection, you just want it to look like they belong together, but they can be individual paintings as well. You know, because when you're working in the industry, you have to provide options. One of the key factors in creating and collection is to maximize your profits. So if you can create five or six paintings and a collection, and somebody who likes their collection, they're going to want all five paintings. It's better than selling just one painting, right? So give them something to love. So that's what we're doing. And so what I'm going to do to begin with is on each strep, I'm going to put one color on each step just so we can kind of see that as a main color. And then we'll be able to figure out which colors we're going to use with those to complement them. So, and within this collection, I'm going to use my water color techniques. It's going to be a very loose collection. It's not a tight collection like the first half of this course. This one, I'm using my watercolor technique. So it's going to be very loose. It's just a whole different style altogether. And this is one thing that I talk about too, is, you know, as a licensing artist, you want to develop a number of different styles so that you can give licensors the options of different Lux. I'm known for a number of different styles. I'm known for doing watercolor, washes, loose paintings, and also very tight, clean, thicker paint, kind of solid color paintings. And then there's times where I'll use illustration to everybody I worked with knows that I do illustrations and drawings. And I blend these with my techniques. So this one we are using washes and we're going to use watercolor techniques. So I'm just adding water to the paint here so that you can see when you add the paint, the different variations in colors. So you are creating different values of one color. You can actually get more value from one color when use a watercolor because you can do it really washed out and it looks like you added white paint which you didn't. And then the more opaque you put it, then the darker that color is. So right now I'm just playing around with okay, What for say painting one, this one. What colors I'm I going to use? So I've got the dark gray, which is actually looks very teal ish. There are notes of blue and green in it. So I'm just playing around what's going to go with this, the gray. So as we move forward along, I think with this one, I wanted it more monochromatic so to have more of the grays and the blues. And then I'll add a little bit of the plum color, plump, swayed to. Give it some depth. Except here I decided to add some plums weighed to the pink. Because like in one painting, I'm planning, oh, I'm going to do monochromatic, the blues and the grays, but it kinda needs a little bit more of that plum. And then in the other one, I was going to use the pink and the plums. But this is what it's all about. So for this first painting, I have selected the medium gray, green scape and plum swayed. So those are the colors for the first painting. For the second wound, its planning process. And we're going to use the rose pink. And I've added green scape and the swayed plum. So for this painting, we're going to use this three colors. So it's the plum swayed green scape, and rose pink. So you see how in the first painting it's not the same colors. I mean, we've got two are one of the same colors but or two of the same colors actually. But the main color is pink. So when we put these paintings together, there's still going to compliment each other. Okay, So I'm working with the seascape or sorry, green escape background. And I'm going to see what it looks like with a plum. And I'm add a little bit of the yellow oxide. Okay? So this painting, now keep in mind that when you start creating the paintings, you might find there's a little something missing and you might add a little bit of the other color. But this is just a guide to show you. Here's your main color. And we're going to use these other colors as complementing colors. Okay, so again, the neck, this painting is green scape, Yellow Oxide and plump swayed. So now I'm working with the plum swayed color as my main color. And I'm going to put some complementing colors. So I'm just trying to figure it out here. I'm kinda looking at everything. So we're going with the medium gray. And what am I going to put with it? Can you tell that a pre or I've recorded the videos ahead of time and then I'm adding the color and a little bit of yellow. Beautiful. Okay. So this painting is yellow, or sorry, I'll do it in order here. Plums swayed, medium gray and yellow Oxide. And now this last painting, I'm actually going to use all the colors. And I usually do this with one of the paintings in the collection, so I'll use every single color in one of the painting and then the complimenting paintings, we'll just have a variation of these colors. So now when you just look at this, let's call it playtime. Because really that's what it is. Just playing around and figuring out what painting I'm going to do what? And we sell them, pick the subject for it. But now you can see how we begin to plan the collections. So here I am writing it out, painting one painting to this painting three, painting for, and then painting five. So this is the beginning stage. We picked out our colors for each painting within the collection. Now we'll move on to creating the subject.
6. Painting 1 - Birds: In this lesson, we will be creating painting one in this collection. So we, I'm actually going to jump to the number five color palette that we created in the last lesson. And the reason being is because it has all the colors than that. So I wanted to start with kind of the base painting, the main focal painting. And this painting is going to have all the elements that I'm interested in for this collection. So we're going to put some botanicals. We're gonna do birds. And we're going to create imagery with some designs in the background, my little components, like branches and florals. But I, you know, I really like the look of these wallpapers. So i'm, I'm going to create an image that could be repeated as wallpaper. However, it's an individual image as well. So this is going to give license or flexibility to use an image like this. So I'm going, I'm going to be using my creative brief that I created. And I'm using a couple of these birds here as like composition guides for me so I can create my own birds. And, you know, I always start with a very light penciling. If you've taken any of my courses, you've probably seen a few of my, the way that I like to draw using shapes just to kind of guide me and then I can really get the details of the animal. And actually when I say detail, like a final outline because we really aren't doing a lot of detail here we are using a watercolor technique. So just follow along. And another thing to keep in mind when you are creating with me, you do not have to make your birds look like mine. Please don't, don't stress about making a bird's look like my this is part of your development. So when you're taught classes on how to paint or draw, is you're giving little techniques and you can certainly do the same composition. Bird, bird is going to look a little bit different. And once we get paint in there, Everybody is this their paintbrush differently. So you're gonna get different markings and it's really, really cool to see what people create. I've been very surprised, pleasantly surprised to see how artists or creators that take my class when they post and share their work, how different it looks even though we're using same components, colors, same composition, and all the little components like that, how everything looks different. So please be sure to share your work on my Facebook page two, I would love to see what everybody's creating. So what I'm doing here is I'm getting the main elements, which of course is the birds. I'm not going to go drawing in all those little details that we're going to put in them background. And as we start painting, you will see why. And that is because they're just simple brush strokes and they're going to be quick. This painting's going to go by very quick. So once you've got your birds in, I might put a few little guidelines like right now I'm just drawing in a branch so I can know where the main branches are. When I start painting, I'll know how to build off that branch. So that's what I'm doing right now. I'm just putting a couple little branches in. And once we have our main guide in, then we will be able to start painting. I'm going to be adding cherries on these branches and some flour components. So if you want, you can, you know, I'm just kinda doing some rough little lines and circles. So have an idea of where I want the cherries. Nothing detail. Don't worry about doing a purple perfect circle. We're going to paint over it and any lines that are left behind after you do your painting. Able just to erase. So make sure that you're very light on your pencil. Do not press down too hard. You don't want the pencil marks to stay behind. So be very loose and light. So now we've got the whole composition laid out and, uh, we're going to start painting. So to begin, make sure you have every color on your little palette here so we can begin painting. And I'm taking inspiration from the illustrate a flower guide on our brief and Now you'll notice as I paint here, I am just using brush strokes to create all these flowers and fruits. So we're going to use different brush strokes to create different look and flowers. And I am just selecting areas where I want these little different pops of colors. So you're gonna build your composition. The idea is you want the eye to bounce around the whole painting, not just be stuck and focused on one. And I like to do this with color. We have our main focus, which is our birds. But once we get everything back there, It's gonna get, it's not going to be too busy because there's a lot of whitespace, but we don't want viewers to just focus on the birds and go, Oh lovely birds. We want that to be fooled and pop around. And so we're sticking a little bit of this beautiful yellow color in there to keep the interests of the painting. So that's what the yellow, we're just adding a little bit and you can see there's movement that goes from left to right to left. So this is good practice. And now I'm going to get started on my cherries. Saw I'm using the pink color here. And you don't want to paint the whole circle of the Cherry, Just, just get a little bit of pink in there. And then you can go in with the plum color or the plums swayed color and get a little bit of dark color on the other side. And you can see I'm wetting my brush and I'm kinda Smithsonian the colors and that'll get it to bleed and you'll get some really nice effects. So like I said, this is going to be very, very loose painting. So it's all about technique here. And you can explore this style as well. I know in the first half of this course, we used a different painting styles. So I'm really trying to show range in the way that I paint these collections. So you guys can get an idea of what kind of range you should have. If you want to start licensing your art show companies, that you're not just somebody who paints one way or one thing. And it, it's not that your work is going to look different. You are going to use these styles in your work constantly and you're going to fuse these styles so that becomes your style. And people will start recognizing your work, whether you do a watercolor technique or you're using heavier bodied paint or illustration. So just be open-minded about it. Try new things. Just because, you know, you, you are used to doing something a certain way doesn't mean that, you know, you can try something else. You might really enjoy this style. So we're working on the birds. And I'm using the green scape. And I'm, I'm kinda thinking about like highlight areas. So I'm using the lighter color for the top of the bird. Again, do not color the whole burden just be very suggestive and less as more because you can always add after. Now, I'm using the medium gray here to do the underside and get a little more detail in. So we're really only using two colors for these birds. And, you know, if what I suggest is just after you apply your first little bit of color, dip your brush in water, and just go back over with water to kind of blended or get a different variation of that color like Britain those shades out. You know, it's, it's almost like you're painting backwards instead of adding white to your paint to make it lighter, you're starting with dark and you're using more water to lighten up the color. I use the darkest that I can with the beaks to get a little bit of definition. And I'll do the same thing with the legs. And of course to put a little eyeball into. So this is all about just watch and absorb the technique. And then you can pause the video as much as you need and try it yourself. I'm just going to speed up the video a little bit here. While I get the feet in. And then you'll see me get little eye into. Okay, we are going to be switching our color to the plum swayed and we're going to get these branches in here. It's going to be a nice divide for the composition, so it doesn't look too much like. A pattern. We're really going to make it look like a painting. So again, just my tip is to be really light with your paintbrush. Lift the brush off the paper so you're actually using the tip of the brush and you're not press. If you press down too hard, you're going to get found our brush stroke. So it's always nice to start light. And if you want thicker branches, you can think of them up, which is what we're going to do. We're just kind of getting the guides in there and then we'll tweak things as we go and get the little stems of those cherries in. And our painting as really beginning to build out. So here's an example where I thicken up the brush strokes and I'm leaving a little bit of white just so we can have some depth. It's almost like an illustrate of technique giving some depth to your branches. So they don't just look like little little twigs or little lines across your paper. So I'm just going to speed up the rest of the process here so that you can see how it's developing, but have to see it in real time. And again, you just work at your own pace. Okay, so we're switching colors to our medium gray and we're going to begin doing the little stems of the flowers. And I put a few little buds in here. So we're going to continue with that. Only have a few more here. And then we are going to switch colors again and we're going to begin putting in, oh no, we're not switching colors. We are going to be put in some leaves with the flowers. And you'll notice the technique that I'm using when you're doing leaves, flower petals for whatever, they're just very simple brushstrokes. So make sure that you have your paint water down to a consistency so that you get variation in your colors when you put the water down. Like if you imagine a grayscale with these different colors. So you can see the leaves that I'm doing here as just two brushstrokes. And look at the variation that I get just by pressing down on the brush because there's less paint on the base of the brush where it meets the handle. So you'll get more of a watery effect and then the tip of your brush is going to have a darker pigments. So you want variation. So continue, we'll put a couple leaves in here. I'll speed the video up a little bit, and then we're gonna move on to the flowers. Okay, so we're going to add some pink rose flowers. And we're just going to lighten up the paint a little bit, add just a little bit of white. And again, just simple brushstrokes, one simple stroke for each flower. We're going to move around our painting. I just kind of sit back and see where my painting needs a little element, trying to keep them close to the branches. So I'm just being up the video here so you can see the placement pink flowers. Once we're done with the pink flowers, we're going to be adding some little Plum Flowers as well in between some of the vacant spots. So I'm moving over to plumb again. I just add a little bit of white so that they're not as dark as the branches. We get a little bit of variation. And I'm just going to be selective where I put them. I just want to make sure that I'm filling up some of those big negative spaces. We want some white, we don't want to start plopping flowers down all where it's white. You want to keep them close to the branches. But, you know, you want to make sure that there's no big spaces left wide open. I add another pink went up there and you'll do that. You'll sit back, look back and see that you need to add something somewhere else. Okay, So what I'm doing now is I'm going to mix some white with the pink to lighten up the color. And then we're going to add another pedal between each of the darker pink petals that we just did. We're going to do the same thing with the plum Keller after. So ju all your paint. Once you're done, you can go in and get some plum, add a little white, and you will do the exact same thing. Okay, Now we're going to add a little bit, we're going to take some yellow, add a little bit of white and put a pale yellow inside the center of each of the pink flowers. And then go back and get a little bit of the darker yellow. And just add a little bit to one side of the center of the flower. Just kinda make it pop. But without it being one solid color. So we're adding just a little variation. So we're going to do the same thing with the purple, but I'm going to use the medium gray. So I'm just going to lighten up the medium gray. And I'm just going to stick a little dot in the center of each one. Now that's going to be the final component of this painting. And the reason why I didn't add little stems to connect the flowers to the branches, is because I didn't want to see too many lines, it wouldn't make it very busy. So I just left it organic, leaving that negative space between the flowers and it's just a nice little added touch an inch to part of the style. So congratulations for completing your first painting within this collection. This is what it looks like, the final product. And this is going to give us a lot to work with moving forward in this collection. So let's move on to painting number two.
7. Painting 2 - Leaves & Branches: Okay, We're going to begin painting number two in this collection. And we are going to be focusing on this color schemes. So we're going to be using the medium gray along with the plum swayed. And the inspiration for this painting is going to be just purely botanicals are leaves. And I'm going to be really using the composition over here with the branch coming down because I really like that look. So we're going to add two different branches and they're going to be in two different colors. So it's almost like a silhouette. We are going to be using the watercolor technique throughout this collection. This is going to be a quick painting. We're going to only be doing two branches of leaves. So what I'm doing is a little light outline of the branches and the leaves so I can kinda plan the composition. Now, typically if I was painting this on my own, I would just go ahead and start painting. But I want to show you that there's other ways. If, if you're not really confident in going in with your paintbrush that you can. It's okay to take a pencil lightly and just kinda do a light outline even if it's just a portion of your painting to get you started. So that's what I'm doing here, just so you know, you can get inspiration on techniques on how to get you started with your paintings. And you're not just kind of stumped and thinking. I don't know where to begin or I don't know how this is going to turn out. So here is an option for you. So once you're done with a really light guide, make sure you have your paints available. This is going to be really quick. We're going to water down our paint, like we've been doing with this entire collection. And we're going to begin with the plums swayed. So I have my guides. I'm literally just going to be following using the same technique like I always say, just be really light on your paintbrush when you're doing the branches. And then what I'm doing is creating leafs. And I do this in two strokes. So we do the top of the leaf and then the bottom of the leaf in this case. And then the top. And then I'll just, you know, rinse my brush out a little more paint to finish off the leaf. So you've got variation in there. And what's nice about this technique that you will see as we go along and paint is that you almost get a photography image. It almost looks like photography because there's that grayscale and we're using limited colors here. We're only using two colors. And we're using our water too. Water down that paints so we get the different tonal value of that pain or the shade, the shade, the lights, and the darks. And as we create this painting, you'll see like if you look at this leaf, I'm leaving it very washy. So I'm going to do variations of this where parts of the leaves are going to be very faded and then others are going to be a little bit dark. So this is your time to play around. And actually this is, not only are we creating a painting here, but it, this is a good exercise for practicing this technique. I mean, for me, I could do probably tend to these paintings in a row just to play around. And you end up with beautiful, simple paintings, but these are great for home decor. Okay, So I'm just speeding up the rest of this painting here so that we could get to our next color. But you can see how it's forming and see how that leaf coming out. On the right-hand side is just a lot lighter than the one on the, on the left. So play around and get some variation there. Alright, let's switch over to the medium gray. And we are going to do the exact same technique with the gray here. So water down your paint. Play around with the lights and the shadows here. I'm just creating some branches. And then I will move to leaps, same technique to strokes, and then you can kind of fill in the center. Make sure you have a lot of water on your brush. Otherwise, when you go to kind of fill in the center, you will see just dry paint streaks so you want it to be nice and wet. And the beauty about this technique as you see a lot of texture within the leaves without going in and having to paint using a number of different colors just to get that leaf to pop out in all three-dimensional. And I'm just going to speed the video up along here because I think you understand the technique by now and you could just walk out. This painting is developing. Okay, So at this point what I'm doing is I'm going to go in and deepen the branches that CAN them up a bit and add a little more contrast to some of the leaves. Add in a little more deepness in color to some of those leaves, just so it doesn't look so flat. And then once I'm done that, I'm just going to add these tiny little branches that come off. So it looks like there were leaves there, um, or maybe there's new leaves growing. So it looks a little more realistic. And not luck lines across your page. But anyways, that's it for this painting. Look how beautiful this painting has turned out. And it really does remind me of some of those photographic techniques. When you see the photographs. Yeah. I think I flipped the painting around. I think it's upside down. So let's just fix that. Okay, here is the completed painting, everyone, and I hope you had fine. Are you enjoyed creating this painting method?
8. Painting 3 - Cherries & Blossoms: In this lesson, we will be creating the third painting in our collection. This is a color scheme we will be using, which is the pink, the plates swayed plum and have a hard time saying that word. And green escape. We're going to. So my inspiration is the cherry blossoms over here and the cherries hanging. So as you saw in a glimpse when we began the lesson or this little video, I showed you a picture of the painting we're going to be creating. So just the last painting, I am going to do some light guidelines just to help me kind of decide where I'm going to be creating the branches of the tree. This really helps with the composition. So it's a very similar, I mean, throughout this entire collection, uh, we are using the same techniques. And this really helps when you're creating a collection. You want all the paintings to have a similar feel to it and a similar styles. So your technique is going to be the same. So I'm just lightly, I know it's really hard to see, but I know watching the other videos you're going to get an idea of what I'm doing here. So I'm really just creating some very light guides because we're using washes. They, if you do it too dark, it's just going to show through. So I do want you to go ahead and plan your little composition. You can certainly look at the painting itself and do something similar. It, again, it doesn't have to look exactly the same, but here are the colors again, it's the rose pink, the plum swayed, and the greens scape. So we will begin with our, Well, I guess make sure you have paint on your palette. I was running a little short here, but make sure you're prepared and you have all your tools. I'm going to get my brush. We're going to water down the paint just like we did with the other ones. Exact same technique. So really, I'm just showing you different subject that we can use in these collections and how we're going to build it. So the purpose of this is, I am creating paintings that we'll be able to stand alone as an individual piece and also as a collection on the wall. So you can display them on the wall in a row, in a set of two above and below. You can have them in the same room, set two of these paintings together and have one on the other side of the room or another part of your house as well. So there's lots of different options. When we get to the next couple lessons, you will see how my compositions are going to completely change. They will be components. But right now we are creating a complete paintings off to the edge of the paper. So I've done the main branches. I'm right now I'm just, I'm, I'm putting the little stems of the fruit hanging down so I know where the fruit is going to go. I'm going to speed up the video a little bit so you can just see the process, enjoy the process, and learn through the process. Okay, from now until the end of this lesson, this is the speed that I will be working in for you. So you can really absorb a similar techniques that we're using in the previous paintings. You've already done these cherries. So it's the same technique. You just paint a half of the cherry. Let parts of that press down on that brush so you get some real watery sections and just continue to build up your cherries. I've added a little bit of white to pink so that in-between each cherry that I've done, we have can see the cherries overlapping each other. We kept it the same. They would just kinda start continuing to be a big blob. And then go ahead with your S-wave mode and plum, and continue just getting a little bit of shadow into the bottom. And if you want to add a few more cherries, you can, because I don't think I added enough for the stems that I dead. And right now what I'm doing is just adding a little life to these branches, these little, little broken branches, or they look like little buds, like the little flower buds coming off. And now we're going to add some leaves. Now the leaves are smaller than the leaves in the last class because they are different leaves. I'm using inspiration from a different type of leave and the cherry blossom. So we want a variety of sizes in our collection. Think of close-up images, far away images. And you will begin to kinda see that in the next lesson to how we were making the images that are part of this collection are really different compositions and kind of a different appeal, but they will still work together. So we're just going to continue creating these leaves. Make sure the composition is the way you like it. And then we're going to start adding a few little cherry blossoms to live in it up. You know, fill in some of those spaces. So I'm using the plum swayed and I'm getting some little flowers. And remember this is art. I am not focusing on what a real cherry blossom looks like or the color. We are simply creating art. It is a decorative styles so you can use, if you wanted to create this kind of imagery, it is very spring with a different color palette that matches spring. These are things you can do, but I'm just, you know, we're going from the beginning to the end with creating briefs, picking out colors, and completing a whole collection. So if you wanted to get inspired just with colors, you can definitely do this class afterwards using a different color palette. I mean, this is all about learning and experimenting. So however the process takes you, That's how you're going to create. If you remember in the first painting, when we were painting the flowers, we did two different colors of paddles. So we're, we're just repeating that same technique here. And then I'm just getting a little bit of white in the centers. Oh, I'm adding a third level here. Okay, So we're adding a third level. Look at that. I surprised myself. So continue finishing these up and then I'll get a little bit of yellow in the center. My putting a little bit of yellow now, I'm putting a little bit of sage green, the beauty of recording your videos and then having to interpret everything after voila, your complete. This is the final painting.
9. Painting 4 - Simple Floral Elements: In this lesson, we will be creating the fourth painting in the collection. We're simplifying our composition quite a bit. And the reason being is because we want to create a range of art within the collection that could also be used to maybe create some kind of a pattern. It's very common in the licensing industry to have simple elements that can go within your painting in case they want to create products on blocks of wood, and then they want a nice pattern for the outside. So it's just things to keep in mind. You know, a lot of times in the industry they'll use pattern within a collection to create inspirational wording or that kind of thing to go along with your other paintings. So this is the reason why it's important to put a simplistic components within your collection for the licensor to be able to use. In other ways. We are using these colors, the green scape, the Yellow Oxide, and the plum swayed. So I've taken inspiration on the simple, like Illustrator botanicals on the left. And I am just creating these very simple air MRI images for this painting. Again, the style is the same, the technique is the same. We are always just using simple brush stokes to brush strokes to create the little buds. And always remember when you're painting little twigs and stuff with a paintbrush. To be light on the brush, just use the tip of the brush. Don't press down so hard the more you press down the fatter or wider your lines. So be nice and light using the tip of the brush to do these little stems and this kinda thing might take practice too. So if you feel you need to take a piece of scrap paper to kind of practice your brush technique. Feel free to do that anytime within this course while you're creating these collections. In fact, I encourage you to do this. Once you've gotta feel of your brush and the techniques, it'll work so much smoother when you're creating your paintings for the collections. One tip I will give you though, is make sure you're doing it on a watercolor paper because you never know when you're going to create something really special, the worst thing you can do, and I have done it. So this, I'm speaking from experience, is to practice on, say, a piece of copier paper and you come up with something really cool. And now the papers buckled. You can't scan it. So you're out of luck. And then to recreate a really difficult, so just, you know, take these scrap pieces of watercolor paper and practice on there because you could come up with some really cool elements. So I'm creating these leaves off of the little buds. And all it is is a line off the main stem and then we're doing little lines down. So really if you can draw our painting line, you are laughing. This is going to be a breeze for you. And again, it's just practicing. It's really about how light you are with the brush. Any problems that I can first see is you pressing down too hard on that brush and you kinda get like a big glob of paint. So just practice, practice with the amount of water that you mix with your paint as well. You don't want it to running because a little bubble of water we'll just kinda spill down on that paper. You just want the consistency, right? And like I always say, everything takes practice. If you've taken any of my other courses, you've definitely been practicing with mixing paint with water. So continue to do that and it will come. Don't ever get discouraged. Just keep practicing. Art is like anything else that you do out there. Practice makes perfect. The more you practice, the better you get. And that's when you start seeing artists evolve your style evolves, your technique evolves because you're doing it so often, you're experimenting with ways to make it a little bit better or make it a little bit easier. So these are kind of my tried and tested ways and I'm sure thrill the process. The many, many times that you paint, you might come up with a different technique or way. And that's okay too. In fact, I encourage that it's just all about exploring and finding something that works for you. So if you've gathered by my videos so far, I really do like to give a lot of valuable information as you watch me paint. I just think a little tips like this are important. So I hope you appreciate it. I'm doing it to help and assist you. And we're just continue moving on. Like I said, this is a very simple painting. It's a quick painting. It's under 10 minutes. So you can just continue watching and enjoying the process. And like everything that you do and my courses, I really hope that you continue to share your art through whatever platforms that I provide for you. So, you know, it's a way that I can give you feedback to and keep encouraging you. And I'm just going to allow you to listen to the music while you watch me complete. At this point. Hi. Hi. Okay.
10. Painting 5 - Two Birds: This lesson we will be creating painting five, these two birds. So this is the color palette we'll be using for the birds. The plumbed swayed, the medium gray and the yellow Oxide just for a little bit of accents. So I'm using again these birds as inspiration. I kind of picked, I liked the silhouette of these little guys here. I am going to change the composition just a little bit. But like always, I always focus on the main component first. So I'm just doing a light drawing here. You know, the trick to drawing anything is using shapes that, you know, to give you the basic proportions of things. So I start with the smaller circle and put the oval and then you can get all the little details in. So get a drawing in again, just do your best. You know, things don't have to look exactly like, I mean, my birds are completely different than what the picture is. I'm just using them as reference for the dot biology of the animal. So, you know, you can develop your own stylized version of animals. They don't have to be exact. You know, once you put a beak and wings on a bird, everybody knows it's bird. So have some fun with that. And if you don't have that much experience drawing, just you can really develop a cool style from that, to be honest. So do your best. I'm just getting the little birds in and then I'm going to try to figure out where I want the branches of the birds to sit on. And from here, That's where I get to the idea of the composition. Now, in keeping with the same style like the last painting, what we wanna do is create a simplistic image with whitespace around. Again, that will give licensors the opportunity to use this on various products and isolate just the birds may be adding components of your other images in was at, or maybe just simply putting it on, you know, their product, something that would fit on their product. So you want to, you know, I mentioned this a law. You want to give options with your art. You're going to, when you're creating collections, you are going to create images right off the paper using the whole composition and other components where you're centralizing the image in the middle so that they can pull that focal image off and remove the background and place it on products. So always keep that in mind when you are creating collections, you want to have a variety of both. So I'm going to begin, we're using the same technique as other paintings. The first birds that we made, we are using that same technique. So we're going to be using the dark gray here. And of course, the more you watered it down, the lighter the gray you're going to have. So try to make sure it's quite washing in the beginning. And I always tend to start with one side of whatever object that I'm paintings. So if you kind of imagine the sun casting down on the top of the bird from the top right-hand side down to the left. So the top's going to be a little bit lighter and then underneath you can deepen it up a bit. But I always recommend when doing this technique, start off a little lighter with lighter paint and you can always add dark and after, make sure your paint is wet. And when you press down on the brush, the base of the brush is going to have very little color on it. It's mostly water. So here you can see me really pressing down and I'm getting a nice washy light, light gray. And then the areas that I want to deepen, I'll just go in and, you know, like the beak for instance, I'll use a darker, like a lot more paint on it. So it's all about practice. It's just a technique. But it's a really, you know, when, when I talk about a variety of painting styles in the license in industry, this is what I'm talking about. It use your paints differently. And I don't buy watercolor paint. I use my acrylics like watercolor. So you don't have to go and invest in more expensive pain or different type just because they say it's watercolor, you can certainly do this with. Your acrylic paint. And I do recommend the craft acrylic paints do not use a full body paint for this. The craft acrylic paint is more fluid and you will get better results. So we're just going to continue finishing the other bird now with the plums spade. So same technique here, just using a different color. We're going to finish off this little bird. I'm just going to speed up the video a little bit so you can see how he's coming together. And you can see how I'm adding darker pigment in various areas so I can make the little wings pop out and give some texture there to mimic some feathers. And now we're just moving into the legs of the bird. And again, be very light with your brush. If you could just use the tip of the brush, you're going to get nice thin lines. I think the most difficult part of this technique is just kind of knowing when to stop. So a lot of the time it's just about experimenting and have an experience. So if you're new to the watercolor technique, just do your best and don't get discouraged. You can always try again. And like I mentioned, the last video, just make sure that when you're practicing, you're using watercolor paper. Because sometimes you come up with the best paintings when you're just fooling around. And the last thing you need is for it to be on a horrible paint, paint, a piece of paper that doesn't stay flat or look nice or rips. Okay, so for each bird, we're just gonna do a simple branch coming down. And for the medium gray and I know I keep saying medium gray, but there are a lot of blue undertones to this gray, so it does look blue. And I think on the screen it looks bluer than it actually does in person. But I love it because there's actually different colors like my paints separates. So you'll see a little bit of red in there and blue. So it's a really pretty color, but it is called medium gray. But anyways, we are going to do the gray branch with the gray bird. And we're going to do the plum branch with the plum bird. And I'm just adding little details on the branch so it just doesn't look like a stripe coming down the page. So just be mindful of those little details. It doesn't take a lot, it's just a little simple brushstroke. And I'll just speed up the last part of this branch for you. And then we'll get to the final component of this painting. So here we are. And I just want to brand a little bit of the yellow Oxide in. So we are going to do a few little yellow flowers coming off these branches. And when I say few, it's going to be a few just to add a little accent and tie in the other images to the painting. And they're just simple little strokes like we've done in the last couple of paintings. I'm going to add a couple of buds as well to the branches, just so that it's not so repetitive with just the same kind of flower popping up everywhere. And I'm just going to speed up the last little bit of this painting for you so you can see how I finish it off. And again, it is just a simple, beautiful little image that you can put in what the collection. And there's a lot of uses for an image like this, for a lot of different products. So I not only want to teach you techniques and how to paint, but I want to explain to you why we create the way we do and why it's important to create the way that we do. So there's our final painting. This is what it looks like. I hope you enjoyed it.
11. Painting 6 - Foliage: In this lesson, we will be doing a sixth painting. So what I like to do is once I've created the planned paintings and they're all laid out here. I can look and evaluate the collection and see if I'm missing some kind of components. So by looking at them all in front of me, I see that I have a variety. You know, I've got a couple of simplistic pieces and then some that are a little more busy. But I feel like I could create more within this collection to give more Opposite options. So I put a couple of paintings scattered around to see which ones look good as just a little small collection and then how they look with bigger images together and what works and what doesn't. I want other pieces to tie in the collection. And when you're creating a collection, it doesn't necessarily mean everything goes has to go together on a wall, but you can pull pieces within that collection like these two here, they're very simple, just to be, you know, the ones that you select when you're in the store or when retailers are looking at your stuff, TBI there like this beautiful collection, but they're so different. You know, somebody might just like the simplistic part, but then there's this beautiful array of imagery that's Fuller and off to the page and they might like that. So I think it's a great idea just to purchase the whole collection because our buyers are going to love it or, you know, So that's the way we think when it comes to licensing. So I want to give more options. I want to get more options. The more options that you give, the more likely someone is going to want to buy. So I'm doing a sixth painting. We're actually going to do a couple more paintings. But in this one, I want to use the colors, the colors that were used with the two leaves, the gray and the plum. And I'm going to add a little bit of that green escaped to, but I'm going to take components of two of those paintings. And you'll see in a minute here, as I've freshen up my palette and make sure I have enough paint. Ok, so I'm using my own images now for inspiration. So these leaves I want to incorporate, and I want to incorporate the simple green scape, little leaves on the left here, those little ones. So it'll be the bigger leaves, little, little leaves. And then we'll do little buds. And we're going to only use three of the color, the deeper colors in the collection. And we're going to eliminate the pink and the yellow from this one. So we've got some color variation to. So it's always nice when you're creating a collection once you get your main pieces, to now use those main pieces as inspiration for your complimenting pieces. So I am not planning anything with my pencil this time. I am just free forming it. So I'm taking elements from those paintings. So we will begin with the branches and the leaves. And I'm using my deep gray. So same technique. We are going to be doing a branch with leaves coming off that branch. And I'm just going to speed up the video here so you can see the image forming before we change to the next color. So I'm doing another set of branches that just kinda crisscross. Okay? So now we're done that actually I'm going to add another leaf in here because there's a big empty spot. Okay? And always nearer the, the leaf on the other side with this type of leaf. It's like a birch leaf. Okay, now we're going to move to our green scape and we're going to create another leaf going up from the center to left-hand corner, but it's going to be the little fern leaves right there. I'm going to do one branch. And I'm going to speed up the video a bit just so you can see we've done the branches in the other videos so I know you know how to create them. You can just follow along, but you'll see how I'm building up this composition. It's like this composition of three main branches. And then we'll have some little bursts of buds coming off of it. So now that I'm done with that leaf, I'm going to get my little buds just filling the two little gaps on either side of that. And I always like to do when I'm doing fillers, I like to do groups of 32 just so that they're not so mirrored. You know, you're not doing the exact same thing on the other side. So I'm getting my little grouped can now work done with the buds. And as I kinda look back at my composition, I just want to add one more bigger leaf in the purple. Swayed. I always want to call it move because it has a move. So I was just comparing here the look of it, too simplistic kind of images in the middle. So I'm going to add another big leap between the two gray ones in this mode color. And I think at that point, it's going to look a little more complete to me. Again, I'm just speeding up the video. I will start speeding up the videos when we do these little quicker. Images within the collection. I know you've got the techniques from the last one. So here's the completed image. It's going to be a great addition to our collection.
12. Painting 7 - Flowers on Branches: This is the last painting that we will be creating for this collection and such seventh painting. I'm going to get inspiration from the wallpaper. It's like a wallpaper technique, I call it, where you're creating a component or an image all over the paper. So it looks like wallpaper, but it's not a seamless pattern. So this is great for wall art, but it's also great for if they want to use some kind of pattern or textile within a product as well with the collection. So and I'm also using a couple of the paintings from our collection. So I'm incorporating leaves and flowers. And I'm going to be using the same, actually not the same color scheme. I am going to be using the, the medium gray, the plum color, and the pink for this one. So I'm just beginning by planning out the branches where I'm going to have the flowers and the leaves off of. So I just want to make sure I usually go from the outer edges in towards the center and create a composition that's going to pretty much cover the whole surface, but we're going to leave some nice big white gaps as well. So I'm just beginning with the plum swayed color and I'm creating branches. And then from here we are going to create our flowers. And I'm going to begin with the pink. I'm adding a little bit of white so it's not to paint gets a lighter pink. And we're going to just do like three petal flowers to begin with. We'll get, we'll get a deep mole of in-between these paddles after. But if you work in groups of three, then you know you can get an even number of colors between each leaf with the deeper color. So every little branch that we created off our main branch, you're going to do a group of three petals in this pink. And now that we've created our pink, we are going to use our plum swayed. And we're going to create the three petals between each of the pink ones. So go ahead and do this. Across the surface of your page hair, wherever there's pink petals, but some little purple MovieLens in there. And they're only like these two stroke petals, just like I would do my larger leaves. And I forgot one here. So I'm going to add one up there. And then we're going to move on and create some of the deep gray leaves in-between. And this is going to add some nice contrast as well. And plus we want to do like just keep in mind if you're doing smaller flowers do larger leaves. If you're doing larger flowers do smaller leaves, you don't want everything to be exactly the same size. You want them to make an impact here. So my, these are almost like I think I mentioned last one there, like birch leaves. So There's always like to leaves going off the stem. And I'm just deepening the color here. So you're going to create these leaves in various positions across your page where there's big gaps. And it's okay if you overlap some of the flowers, we're okay with that. I'm going to speed up the video just so you can watch along and see how this composition takes. These are pretty quick paintings. As you can see when you're doing this water color technique, the paintings go by very quick. So you can literally pump out a collection in a couple hours just depending on the style of painting that you're during. A lot of the times when I'm doing loose illustrations and abstracts as well, I can knock out a collection within a couple hours. So it all depends on the style has nothing to do with the value of the painting. It's purely technique. So this is the finished painting. I hope you enjoyed creating this collection with me. I'm going to give you one last lesson so you can view the entire collection. And I'm also going to share some surprise paintings that I threw into this collection when you guys weren't watching.
13. Collection Showcase: I just want to thank you all for joining my class and show you our complete collection. Genes.
Yvette St. Amant, Published Artist
