Paint a realistic bird in watercolours

1. Title: Hi, my name is shivam and am self-taught Watercolor Artist, garden G, focusing on realistic Botanical Art. I worked with multiple mediums and various add styles. But in this class we'll be focusing on watercolours. So after a lot of feedback from a lot of comments, I decided to do a class on birds. I loved painting birds. I think it's perhaps one of the most interesting and easy forms of Botanical Art. It, it really keeps you interested. It's very interrogate, its very detail, it's very FUN. So this is what will be bending in today's session. It's a fairly simple bird. It might look complicated, but you'd be surprised on how simple the processes. It's just about patients and just about giving time TO work. So join me in this session and Painting already worn Botanical bird in watercolours. For more Art related stuff. Please follow me on Instagram 2. Structure and sketching a bird: Hey guys, I'm super happy to see you here. So let's get started on our new project, which is painting this bird and watercolors. So to start off your sketch, what I generally do is I mark the top and bottom areas like the extreme ends of my bird. And I start with a major, a big circle, a big oval shape. So what you do is you divide your bird into individual oval shapes. So where the center one is your body, the top one, which is more like a circle is your head. One in below is the tail feathers. So you do a rough marking using these ovals. And then you start fleshing out your actual shape of the bird. Now this, you might not get it perfect all the time, and it definitely requires practice, but it is a much easier way of using ballpark measurements to place the bird exactly at the center of your paper and also get the proportions right. So if you see the bottom, the main body oval is the biggest one and it's slightly elongated. The head is more like a circle and the Tailwind is rather thin. It's not exactly the shape of the tail, but it does give me a good perspective and a good idea of where the tail is. So right now I'm working on the head, I'm refining the head. I started with the beak. And you can see I'm going over my circle. So you don't have to limit yourself to stick to the borders that the circle is created. You can obviously go out or go inside it. The circle is just there for a basic measurement. Moving down, I'm coming to the body right now and I'm mocking few of these green feathers which I can see right in front of me. And I'm going down creating those two or three individually, tail feathers, wing feathers, which are going out to the body and coming down on the bottom oval. I am reworking on it to create the tail feathers, which are in two different directions with a slight distance between those. And one wing feder going behind. This is just your rough draft of the bird, which you can see we very quickly created because of marking individual body parts. I'm just doing a ballpark drawing of the eye. And that's right there. Now, what I'll do is I'll look at the reference image and I'll quickly start refining the finer details wherever I feel the burn needs to be slightly more plump. I am making it slightly thicker it wherever I need to show narrow body, I'm doing that. And also defining the Fed does a lot of feathers. You can't really see, but the wing, once you can see how many you can define properly in your basic sketch. Now once that is done, what we lose, I'm using a kneadable eraser and I'm using my pencil marks now you might be thinking that what's the point of doing this? Because you just created the sketch first and now you're just, I'm just erasing it all off. That's mostly because the first code that we're going to do is going to be on the entire bird and we don't really want any unnecessary graphite marks on it. So for this piece, I'm using a mix of yellows, oranges, a little bit of red, a little bit of green, and blue. So it's going to be a mix of all of these colors, even for your base code. So I'm just going to take all, take a handful of these colors out on my palette. It's important that you keep the colors ready. You add a couple of drops of water in these, make the consistency good enough. And r10, it should be smooth because for your base coat, you won't have time to prepare the colors or take the colors out. So it's important that your colors are already on your palette and ready to be used. Now, coming to the brushes, I'm using Princeton Neptune series brushes. Size is 24.6, followed by a script liner which is for details. And a couple of these to say about brushes for the base code. So let's get started on this. 3. Importance of first layers- The foundation: The starting of working on this bird, our process begins the same just like every other botanical watercolor piece. I start with a very light coat of water on the entire bird. Now, unlike florals where we work section ways for bugs, what we're going to do is we're going to do the base code on the entire bird. I've added water on the entire body of the bird. And now I'm starting off with the first color, which is yellow. I have a very tiny yellow color prepared on my palette and I'm using it to put it on the different sections of my bird. You can see I'm avoiding the tail area right now because it's in a different tone. It's completely it's going to be the tail area is going to be in blue and greens. So we don't need a lot of yellow there, so I'm avoiding that. Even in this part, you have to make sure you're checking your reference image and applying color as per the reference image. So in the head, you can see a little bit of orange happening around the eye. Instead of yellow, I'm applying orange and a little bit of red just below the eye. So it blends because of the water that we have added. And there's like a very smooth transition of colors happening there. Now, while my color, my wife, my base coat dries, I will keep on adding multiple layers of orange and reds, mixing it with a little bit of yellow to create different hues of that color. It's fine if your base is drying out or if it's getting slightly dried out. Because that is going to help you create texture for the bird. The parts where you have not defined your fader. Those are the areas where you have to give an idea of, you know, that it's a very fatty object. And how do you do that is using different hues and tones of colors, which we do during this base coat. So what you're seeing right now is I'm simply using very smallest strokes on my brush. And I'm using very smallest strokes on my brush and giving a very faint idea of that or multiple feathers happening there. Now as I approached the bottom areas of the wing, you'll see that there's more of greens happening there. So essentially the base, your base might dry out right now. But because of the consistency of the color that we have created, it is going to blend with the yellows and yellows on the top, so don't worry about it. But if your yard base, if the yellow has completely dried out, I suggest that you add a little stroke of water on it to reactivate the wetness of the color. So there's a seamless transition between the two because we don't want any harsh lines at this stage. This is just your base coat. A base coat is very important, but your colors need to blend seamlessly. And you need to understand the different hues happening in a bird. So this, generally a bird has multiple colors, but this one, we are lucky that this bird has just a, you know, yellow shades on the top and the wing has a few green shades. And our tail is well-defined by having green and blues, which is a completely different spectrum of colors. I am using a little bit of orange on my brush and getting an idea of different feathers on the body. Now, my base is still wet. It's not completely dried out. The weather is actually good today and my the water is not drying out quite fast, so that's really great. But in case it's happening to you, you can always reapply using a clean brush. You can reapply a little thin film of water to reactivate your colors. Because at this stage we do not want any harsh lines. Everything needs to be smooth and should blend smoothly. This is the ideal time speed. You can see how slow my stroke side. This is how slow you need to be when you're working on a board. You need to give yourself a name. You need to give the base coat a lot of time. This base coat is different from the ones that we do In case of flowers, there we just leave it. We don't add any textures, but for birds in our base code, we have to add a little bit of texture, a little idea of that. It's a resurface. It's a, it's a feathered surface. In case of flowers, we don't really need to do that because we can build up texture later, but in case of birds, we can't. So I'm just building up the different layers of colors. Now, again, I'm adding more of orange and more of it around the eye because the color in my bird is very vibrant. It's not that vibrant on my sheet right now. So that's why I'm adding another layer of colors. Again, you can notice my strokes are very tiny and there are multiple strokes happening in in, in one area. So it's not like a single long stroke that I'm doing. It's multiple tiny strokes that I'm doing to give the idea of feathers. This stroke technique, when it dries out, it gives you a very nice look off a very fiery surface, which I generally use when I'm painting birds. So again, I'm adding more of oranges and reds. Now my area has dried out so you can see I'm using a little bit of clean brush and I'm just, you know, dampening the edges and blending it out because I don't want any harsh edges right now. So this is what you can do if your base is dried out, use a clean brush and just dip it in water and remove the excess water and just use it to damp the edges and use it to completely blend them out. Once you're satisfied, once you are okay with, you know, how your eye looks like. If it's closer to your reference image you create. If you feel you need to add more of oranges, you can. In my case, I feel it's closer to the reference image. So I'm now moving on to the petals which are greener in color. For this section, I'm using the general technique which I use in puddles. I'm applying my color on one edge and spreading it out with a clean brush. So it gives me a light and dark effect. I'm using this to define the individual petals. So if you want, you can work on alternate petals or you can give time. You can wait for the feather to dry and you can then work on the next petal. So this is one area where you need to spend good enough, good amount of time to make sure, you know the effect comes out great. The technique is same. I am just following my reference image and the different areas of feathers which I can make out at the tip of my wing. Again, I'm working on different areas at a time so my color does not bleed onto the other area where I don't want that specific color. For this, I'm using the greens. I've mixed it with a little bit of blue and brown to create the darker shades, which is, you can see it on the top edge of the section, but I'm working on, I've added a little bit of dark green there. Now it is the same set of technique which I'll follow for two or three more things on the top. And blend it out seamlessly. Anytime you're blending the color, try having a clean, clean, damp brush. Make sure you don't have any color on your brush. Otherwise the blending is not going to happen. You won't have the light and dark effect. You can see I'm now I'm going back to my other area because I want it to fill in the areas in between, but my just in the areas were wet. So I was not able to work on it. So you can see you can divide your bird into different sections. Once your base is done, you can divide it up and work on the individual feathers at a time. Add more dark areas, add more shadows as you please. A lot of time when I have a lot of times when I have given demos of birds, people have asked me that what is, what is the limit to making these feathers? And I'd say the limit is your choice. It's completely up to you how many factors you want to show. If you want to give them a like a rough natural look, you can do that. Or if you want to define individual feathers, It's up to you. So now I'm going back to the top. You can see I applied using my bigger brush than I have. I applied a thin film of water because if it's completely dry, now I'm using a mix of yellow ocher mixed with a little bit of brown to create some shadow effects and highlights. To give an idea of the free surface of the wing and the body. And the transition area where, you know, the yellow is meeting with the green. It's going to have both the color. So that set of, I think there are 23 feathers right there, which will have yellow on top and green at the bottom. So to show a very natural transition of colors in a bird, just define those feathers. In my case, it's, you know, it's it's somewhere in the middle. So those feathers, and I'm using a mix of yellow and green to show them. Now I'm working on the top months again, I'm working in the top area again. Using my smaller Princeton brush. I'm using smaller strokes, tiny strokes to give an idea of feathers. So you have to repeat this technique multiple times, the tiny stroke techniques in case of birds, because that gives a very naturally look, very natural texture to your animal. And that is what we are rooting for here. 4. Layering to build depth: Hey guys, welcome back to the next lesson. I hope the previous ones have gone well and you have not faced any issues in case you have to let me know in the comments below, I'd be happy to reply and clear all your all your doubts. Moving on with our bird, we are going to continue the same process that we have been doing in the previous lessons. That is working with smaller strokes and creating those tiny feathers, feather details using tiny brush. I'm using my Princeton mini brush, which is number 01. Number zero. You can use any number zero brush or double zero or triple zero, whichever one you feel comfortable with. Not. Try not. You try not to use a script liner for this. The script liner is for any longer details strokes that you want to do. But right now we're working with tiny mini, smaller strokes. So a number zero brush would work fine. I am continuing the same process. I'm using mixture of yellows and browns and oranges and creating this different depth in my body. The areas which are near the wing, especially the part where the wing is merging with the body, it is going to have a little bit more of shadows. The shadow of the wing falling on the body. The area with the wing is connected to the body that is also going to have a little bit of plump and a little bit of shadows on the other end. The shadows here I'm showing with a mix of reds and browns mixed in my yellow. Now, continuing to the tip of my wing, it is a mix of greens, blues and a little bit of blacks. But as you always knew, I don't recommend adding black. Right in the beginning, we start with the base coat. We start with the first quote here, which is going to be a mix of blue and a mix of greens. Again, these are slimmer feathers towards the top of the wing, towards the top part of the wing. So I'm going to work on them section wise and I'm going to keep adding colors till it reaches that level of vibrancy and the level of saturation that is in my reference image. As you're working close to the edges towards the body, make sure you are following the goals of the existing feathers. It is important to do that. Otherwise, the essence of depth is it's going to get lost. If you overlap on the existing feathers unless it's required. Revealing some highlights there. Adding a little bit more of shadows using some blacks now. So generally, I recommend using a brush with a very nice tip for watercolors because it's important. You can have a very thick or a big brush as long as it has a very nice tip. So you can do some finer detail work using that Brushes well and as, as one of the section dries out and working on the other different sections, it is going to be a mix. I'm adding a little bit of burnt umber, they're a little bit of browns. A lot of time you might notice that I use colors, which I did not mention in the beginning. That's because that's something very natural in watercolors. You end up using almost every color in your palette to create the correct shade. So that's what I generally recommend. In your palette. Always make sure you have almost every color laid out and you use a dropper or water spray of salts. And every color should be like a ready to use because you never know what color you need. Sometimes because in nature you have multiple colors. Even a yellow in nature is not just yellow. It has shades of red, subtle shades of green, sometimes subtle shades of brown sometimes. So it's always best to have all your colors laid out and see keep mixing and matching, but the base color remains the same. If it's a yellow body, the base yellow is going to remain the same, but the shadows can be shown using mixing it with a little bit of orange or mixing it with a little bit of brown, depending on where the shadow is. So always have all the colors in your palette. Somebody visiting the head once again, because I need to add more depth to it. Again, I added a little bit of brown and yellow mixed on the backside of the head and blended it out using a clean, wet brush because my base was completely right. So this is more like a second, third, or fourth code on this. It's hard to keep track of the number of coats that we do in case of a bird. Because as I said, you have to show the depth and the fatty effect on the bird's body and that requires multiple layers and multiple strokes. The technique rather remains the same. It's just the number of times you have to do it until you feel satisfied that, okay, Now, my head looks, looks 3D. It has a certain effects of light and dark happening. It has a certain depth to it. I'm adding more depth along the neck area. And this is the area where the wing is attached to the body. So it is going to be darker because the shadow of the wing falls on it. Now I'm working on the beak. For the beak, I start off with a very light coat of some shade that's similar to gray. So it's a mix of black and a little bit of white and a little bit of brown 5. Intricacies of the bird: Okay. So once we are, once you feel satisfied with how your basis come out, how the fatty effect or the federal effect has come out and you have the sense of depth happening in your bird. We can move on to fleshing out doors, little tiny feathers, feather details that we need to show in our bird. I am using my zero brush for this and I have a very dilute mix of brown and a little bit of darker brown. So you can see these, these, these feathers are fairly dark in shade and they are quiet out there and you can make out these details. So this is another angle for you to view how I'm doing these strokes. These are extremely tiny and extremely detailed strokes that I'm showing. For this, you don't have to vet your base because you want the sharpness, you want the the rigidness that the paint is offering here. And you need to show the those rigid details at this point. Same technique I will be applying to the feathers which are, which I can make out, which are quite obvious out there. There's a certain vein line which is visible in every fader. So using whatever the, whatever the color of the feather is, for example, if the feather is green, so use a darker shade of green to show that vein. If it's yellow, use a darker shade of yellow and if it's a mix of yellow green and use a mix of yellow, green and a little dark shade of that. And at this point, I am adding a few more sharper shadows, especially along the edges of my feather off my wing. This is the point where, you know, all of these sharper details come in. But make sure you're not overdoing this because you don't have to, but make sure you're not overdoing this. That has to be a certain limitation to how much sharper details you can show. Oh my God. At this stage, if you feel you need to add anymore layer of colors in one of the feathers, you can. If you need to show any sort of detail, any sort of debt or a crack or a hair. Any detail that you can make out. You can try showing that it's completely your choice. You can see the edges of the feather and not as clean because in reality, a feather is very broken. It has these ragged edges, hairy edges. So the roughness of colors actually compliments that. I'm adding these shadows, which is a mix of black and blue at the start and end of the wing feathers. And especially at the areas where you know, the body feathers are overlapping on the wing feathers. From adding more depth and more shadows to those areas. Following the curvature of my existing beings. Let's flesh out the eye. For this. We're not going to go overboard with our colors. We're just simply going to work with a black and a little bit of a white dot, which is evidently visible in the center. It gives a very natural and realistic feel to the eye. I'm going back at the bottom. This is the area which is at the, at the back of the bird, like the part of the word which is not facing us. So it is going to be darker. It's going to be a mix of browns and blacks and a little bit of orange hair and dead head. Have a look at your reference image. See which areas you're working on. For example, if I'm working on the tail feather right now, I am adding a little bit of darker green and mixed with a little bit of brown So a lot of you might be confused. And why I said it's a mix of blue because blue is the underlying color on this tail. If you look closely, you'll see a little bit of blue coming out. And that blue when you lead with brown, is going to give a more realistic look to the whole board. Now this is a extreme back feather, which is mostly going to be dark browns, lead with a little bit of black. So going back to the Eigen, while I was waiting with the eye to dry out. There are these really tiny details along the eye. If you zoom into the image, you'll see these tiny little rugged sort of eyelashes around the bird. So that is what I, you know, I'm trying to do here. So here's a zoomed in version of that. Again, these are like, you know, like dots, dotted strokes. I'm adding around my eye, eye of the bird. We're following the same process on our b here. I'm using my fine brush and a little bit of black to create the textures of the beaks of beak is because a very rough surface. So you don't have to be very smooth. Video coloring, it has to be, it has to have that crack and Racket effect. Now, following the same procedure which I did in the back of the head using the brown strokes. I'm adding Some more defined Phaedo strokes using orange around the beak and the front of the head and in the front door. So these feathers are, you know, like blanking out the body. Lake floating in space, creating a more realistic look to your bird. The bottom area might be slightly difficult to make out which area you're working on. So you're not just a faint idea of the fact that there are multiple feathers happening. You can just give certain shadows, certain highlights, certain black areas for the fire of petals and the one set attached to those two. And for the ones that are attached to the body, you can add a little bit of browns and ocher and oranges. Now going back at the vein. So this is a, this is like the back of the bird. It's going to have a little bit of Brown's, a little bit of shadows there. And we have a few body feathers in yellow like peeking out from the back. It's probably assuming that there's wind flowing around the, around the bird. Now, these are the details which you can see a tally video reference image and see if you feel the need to add anymore tally video reference image and see if you feel the need of adding any more shadows anymore. Depth anywhere. Little bit more of touch ups of color in the beak or the feathers on the head like tiny little details which you feel are missing. So again, as I said, it's completely your choice of, you know, the extent to which you want to go for this bird. All making any bird. Having a fine brushes, extreme 6. Final touches: Have the wooden log that we need to finish off. So I'm using a dilute mix of burnt sienna or brown for this. We're going to keep it very rough and not very detailed or as crisp as the bird. This is going to be more of an artistic approach to the whole couldn't log, which makes it look real. But again, it's not as detailed as the rest of the bird. So I added a concentrated mix, the darker brown along the edges. And now I'm adding another layer of an even darker brown and creating, you know, those, those wooden rings that you see when you chop off any sort of details that you want to show, any sort of texturing that you want to show on this would just do it via your LED is still wet so that you know, all the colors they merge properly shaped lays, you don't have to be very conscious that it needs to be like round. It can be like a rough, irregular shape because that's how nature is. A few details on the feet of the bird. And you know, a little bit of so details here and there using a fine brush and a dark brown shade. I'm creating these fine lines, which are fairly the tail feathers to using a darker mix of greens and dark browns, which can give an, a sense of lake data lake multiple feathers lined one after the other for the, on the tail adds a little sense of depth to the whole thing. My wooden thing has died. The wouldn't log has dried so I'm adding a few strokes, head and depth to create that rough texture of food. You more details here and there along the a. So there you go. Add Watercolor. Bird is ready. I hope you really enjoyed this process as much as I enjoyed guiding you through it. I would love to see over P is to share it with me and any other views or any doubts to leave them in the comments below, I'd be happy to answer them. See you in the next class. Happy painting. Thank you.