Paint a Stunning Abstract!

1. Stunning Abstract Intro: Are you ready to create a showstopper abstract? Well, but this one, maybe the winter, it just has such a vibrant color palettes so much going on. But I don't think too much. And I think it just has a lot of elements that we'll talk about to bring your eye into the painting, to keep your viewer and the painting and fascinated with it, which is what we wanna do is artists. And so I called it the seed pod painting because it's, one of its main features is a seed pod design. And I'm gonna give you a color palette for this and show you step-by-step how to create it. 2. Supplies: Alright, let's chat about supply is that I used in this class. I do describe these in the supply list download, but I wanted to show them to you as well. So I used, I don't normally use, but I use acrylic paper. I've just been experimenting. So this is a £140. I recommend whatever you use. Don't use anything thinner than £140. It just doesn't give you that feeling. So this looks very similar to watercolor paper. It's got a texture to it, like what they call too. But don't go out and feel they can either buy acrylic paper. Watercolor paper is just fine. I like Strathmore. Hansen is good. Just don't buy the cheapest and make sure that it's a £140. I did use 11 by 14 to give me more space to put this one together. So if you want it to look similar, I would use this size. But again, watercolor paper is just fine. And then I did most of the painting with acrylic paint. I used Nova Color. Nova Color is a brand that you don't buy in stores. You order it from California, but do not feel like you have to do that. I just wanted to tell you about it, but if you have a decent grade acrylic paint, it'll be just fine. Liquid taxes, good. Liquitex comes in, these kind of soft body acrylics or the tubes. And you get some of those and show you. There's also the tubes look like this, but there's a cheaper one called Liquitex basics that for, especially for the first layer, works fine. Just a good-quality. Don't get the cheapest. It's just, you're not gonna get the pigment. The way when they make paint. The expensive parts are the pigment. And so what they do is they put less of it and cheaper paint. So you end up having a layer more. So you're really not saving. Another good brand is golden. And there's this fluids which are more liquidy. And then the tubes. I'm trying to think, Oh, I want to show you a couple of student grade brands that are decent and get a cleaner tube. And i've, I've used this Grumbacher before. These are a little bit cheaper. The Galleria Winsor Newton, just like a student grade. And then this Grumbacher is cheaper. That was great about the novel color is the price for the money. For so far, it's the best pain. It's not the best paint overall, but for the price it is. So you get a very good paint for a very good price. Alright, so that's the acrylic side. Now, I want to show you what I ended up finishing with, which was after I did the background and most of the elements with acrylic, I switched to acrylic gouache. And I do that because this paint is opaque. So you get that nice. Let me just show you my sketchbook because we're going to look at the sketchbook anyway. You get this nice opaque finish on this, just very chalky and highly pigmented. And I just love gouache. It was my first paint to learn with, and it's still my favorite. The acrylic gouache is a relatively new invention. And to be honest, it's really an acrylic paint. It has acrylic in it. So it's an acrylic paint. What they've done is retained the chalky Matt, kinda consistency and finish of gouache. So you don't get any Shane. You get that intense pop of pigment and color. And I love it. So you can use regular gouache, meaning let me grab some of that. It's usually called well, it's just called wash. It's Turner, the Turner brand, which here's the arco gouache. And then here is the regular gouache. This is truly a watercolor, meaning does not have any acrylic in it. If I paint, let's say these leaves with regular gouache and then I let it dry. And then I come back and say, I really wanted to darken that, then I can put paint on it and it's going to disturb that the layer underneath it, it's not permanent. That's not bad or good. It's just something to be aware of. What I generally do is I do my underground layer in the alcohol wash. And then the stuff on top in this sketchbook, which we're not doing this in this class, but I'm just trying to teach you. And then the top layers. I can do with regular gouache. But then more and more I'm just ending up using agro gouache because I don't have to worry about disturbing it. There are times though, when I love to use regular gouache. So I'm telling you this so that if you just, if you don't have the acrylic gouache, but you have some regular gouache and you have acrylic paint, then you don't need to buy this. It will work just fine. Okay. Let's talk about brushes. I generally use for the background, you'll see me use a larger, bright. This square shape is called bright pam. The size on this as long gone, it's painted over it. So I think it is probably since this is a four, this is probably an eight. But anyway, when I'm doing the larger shapes, a larger brushes easier. If you don't have one, just take more time with the smaller one. Then when I'm doing the elements on top, I'm using this brush at for bright as well. And as far as brand and this one's nothing special. This is just Creative Mark, which is barely a student grade, that these two are a bit nicer. This is a Princeton Dakota, and this is a silver bracelet and they're both number for brights, both decent brushes. Then when I start doing more detailed like leaves and things that I want more control over. I switched to one of two brushes, generally, the Princeton velvet touch for the Winsor and Newton Cotman. Neither are super expensive, but they're definitely I take care of them. I don't scrub them away like the GPS. And they're different. So I use either a four or five or six round Princeton to do some of the more detailed work depending on the size that I, the element. Here's a two, It's also I used to have. And then this is a script liner for fine lines and things. And then once I've finished o, and these are a couple of colors I used. Some of my go-to is this aqua green. You'll notice it's just really pops for the Turner acrylic gouache. I love as my dark, basically a navy, which you can make with a dark blue and black. But they have a color like that, black blue. It's still I still alter it. Sometimes. I mute it a little bit with some orange just to kinda take some of the blue out. This is the whole vein acrylic wash is what they look like. And there are lots of really pretty colors to play with their beautiful paint. And then yellow. But you'll see your you don't need these. And I just put I just I like to show you what I used so you know what it is. I do a lot of detailing with gold pens. The way I have links to almost all of this. Well, a lot of this, I guess not the, not the Nova Color, but certainly the different galoshes and some of the brushes. These on my website. If you go to Suzanne tyler.com and then look under supplies, you'll see pictures with paint, paper and links. A lot Martin, Amazon, but a lot of them are juries are to Rama or just wherever else I can find the best price for you. So let's see here. My favorite gold pens these days are these pilot gold markers. There's two sizes that just consistently good. They don't seem to clog up. The paint markers in general are problematic. Then. For the thinner gold pen, I like the Pentel actually this is when I was using this one. The Pentel sunburst metallic medium has a really nice flow and color to it. It's amazing because gold pins are not all the same. Some are kind of greenish, which I also use oil pastels. I add texture and pops of color. And this is a set that I have a link to on my website. It's Mongo brand. It for what tried and I've tried a lot of different brands that cost a lot more. This is phenomenal. The quality and the color on these and the price. So I've got the link to that. And I did do some drawing on this painting with Neil color crayons. You do not have to buy these, but I'll just tell you about them. You can use a very light pencil or you can even draw with a smaller brush and just a little bit of paint to give you your idea of what you're, what you're going to pay after you draw it is just these are nice because they're easy to hold and draw your shape. And then. There are water-soluble, so you paint right over them and they disappear. And I choose a color that's similar to what I'm gonna be using. So that's how sometimes how I use these guys. These look like they've been I think a couple of these were in the sun too much. Let's see. Palate wise. I like to use a variety of things. You can use pallet paper depending on the setup you have. It's so easy to, I think I have a link to this on my website too. But it's just a sheet of paper that's shiny and then you use it and throw it away. That's pretty easy. I also sometimes use a glass cutting board. And then when I've got my paint, that's what I've got right here. This is actually my cutting boards somewhere else but over by my easel, but this is just a piece of glass. And then you can see I was painting here and all I do is spray it with water like that. Give it a few minutes. I'll let it sit forward talking and then I take this heavily painted razor blade and scrape it up and then I've got a clean palette. It's just easier than the paper plates I used to use. Let's see if there's anything else I wanted to show you that I don't think I've covered everything that I'm using. This. I do just so often, just so the paper for, for paintings and USO is just a primer. And you can use any gesso you want, but you don't even need to on a painting like this necessarily. The point of it is that you can decide whether you want to use it or not, is that it seals the paper so it keeps the paint from soaking into the paper and has the paint sit on the paper. Just a little bit different as a little bit of texture. It's totally personal preference in this case it's not necessary. All right, Let's scrape this off so I can show you how that works. All the time it takes usually. And that if we don't spray it with water, it ends up taking a lot being allowed heart, and then I just take a paper towel. My palette is clean. I don't have to go through paper towels and other things, but I did put this. This is a great little sprayer for wedding paint to it. I think a cosmetic sprayer. I guess if you're really hot, you can hit your face to put that on my website too. Alright, I think we are ready to create. 3. Collecting Inspiration: Alright, let's talk about inspiration. The world is filled with inspiration. Hit comes in so many forums that once you start seeing like this, you can't unsee inspiration. I take pictures everywhere. But before we get to that, let me talk about some of the other ways that I get inspiration and then how I capture it. So catalogs are fantastic, particularly the anthropology catalogs. But really anything that draws your eye, I mean, just look at the cover of this, look at that shape. That's a great, a very interesting shape that, you know, maybe we could put an a in a painting and that shape, this shape. Even those who are interested. You can take catalogs and cut, cut out pictures and paste them into little sketch book like this. You know, the shape of things, the texture of things, colors. The anthropology catalog is very artful, but wherever you live, there are catalogs and they're free. You just order them online and flip through when they come for inspiration. There's another interesting shape. Look at that lamb. That might be an interesting color palette there. So heart's already types of catalogs, of course, floral catalogs that great inspiration for shapes of botanical elements. Cars were doing abstract. So we're not worried about making it look exactly like this, but we can give ideas even here for shapes, something like that, going up and down. Or maybe something loose like this. You know, not an exact interpretation is just good ideas just so that you're not you racking your brain, wants you, oh, look at that. That Primrose, the bleeding heart. So these are wonderful as well. This one is particularly good Spring Hill nurseries. Here's another catalog, Sundance. Sometimes their jewelry will inspire me to just even have maybe an element in there that looks like a bead or a color palette. They have, their prices are ridiculous and I don't shop there. But where's the jewelry section? That's what I wanted to show you because here I don t know, sometimes I'll just think that these, there's some shapes here like, like that. That might be interesting to put into and do an abstract or a color palette that would be pretty so catalogs. And then also, I'll go so this is my little, this is just a little sketch, paper, book and thin paper and not for painting. And I'm Kyle put in, I'll just grab a pencil and sometimes goes through a catalog like that, or pictures and just make little notes about designs, this background, and that's what that means. Bg, I thought this might, this, these were leaves by five. It might make a good background coloring and same here. This is really the leaf and ginkgo leaves. And you can see these are not technical sketches. These are not botanical drawings. They're literally me taking something like this and saying, you know, that's an interesting shape leaf. Let's see here. Look at this and then grabbing a pencil and saying something that comes like this. These little buds that are like that, you know, could be an element. Fact. I probably will use it because it's interesting. So when I'm capturing it like this, a few things happen. I've practiced it at least once, and I kind of commit it to memory a little bit better by drawing it. So I might think about it. Next time I'm thinking you're wanting an element. Look at these. I mean, just the way the veins are in those two. I'm not trying to capture the whole flower. I might just kinda dry it. And then just draw the details of one of these veins. Just to show and remind, remind me, I might end up using in a composition just the veining. I think the veining is fascinating. Right. See, I'm getting inspired, just showing you all this. So I have a little notebook. And then I have two places really on my phone, but I'm going to use this to show you two places are my photos where I have an album called flowers and leaves. And I think I have one called shapes. Or maybe I just made a Pinterest board on shapes. I think that's what I did. So my flowers and leaves are just something is 762 pictures by now. These are all ones that I've taken. Every time I see something interesting and I want to capture it. It goes in here. So that's one another resource. And then of course, Pinterest. Where are you? You are. And I have course heart inspiration. Here's my shapes. I'm just, it could be shapes from another piece of artwork. It could be things that I think Could, could have shapes on them, could inspire shapes. See here, trying to get to my Pinterest is confusing. Sometimes trying to get because I've got the business account. Here's my shapes board. That was what it was telling me to look at. So I thought these were interesting shapes. I think these flowers are interesting. These rocks looked at these colors. I'm sure this has a filter on it, but still, Here's some shell shapes. And then I have my tropical foliage. I have one called vessels. Let's see here and you can follow me on Instagram and then you will see all this stuff. Leaves, flowers, trends, vintage patterns, vases and bowls. So these will be shapes that I just think are patterns that I think are interesting that sometimes I'll incorporate. Look at those. So this is the reason I like these tools is particularly with this. And then catalogs and then go from here and sketch to like, here's my Latin design. While I could come through here. And I could sketch this little motif. In fact, that's a great idea. And it's a great thing to do when you're, you, you wanna do something toward your creative practice, but you're not necessarily feeling like painting. You can just work on inspiration. You can get your notebook out and you can make some really rough sketches of things that you like. And Pinterest is good in the way that once they see the kind of stuff you like, they will show you more of it. So here. So anytime you spend time on here, you will, it'll, it'll will. You know, you can get lost in the dark hole of Pinterest. But those are the ways that I capture inspiration and they really do work when I'm going and getting ready to create. Okay, there are apps. I'll come on. You know, there's an app for everything. There are apps that can capture colors. And I've tried out some different ones. And my favorite at this point is this Adobe Capture CA. When you open it. And by the way, it'll ask you for if you have an Adobe account, which I do, but you probably don't. But you can use your Adobe account if you have one. If not, you can sign up with Facebook or something else. They give you the options, but it's free. And you go in. And I don't use the audio or the shapes, but you know, that could be fun. I go to Colors, click Create. And then I'm always taking photos of colors and things that I see that have colors I might want to create. In fact, I have an album that is called color inspiration. So let's go there. And you can see that some of these are images from just a display at stores. You know, people who do displays at higher-end stores know what they're doing, they know what trends are, they know what looks good because their job is to catch our eye. So I'm taking pictures all the time of something that looks interesting to me in a store. So once you select a photo, it'll grab some colors for you. But you can change them and that's what I like. So there's too much yellow in green here. So I'm going to. Take this, I just grabbed the dot of the one I want to change and I'm gonna go over and get this navy there. And actually that's a pretty color palette right there. I was going to change something else, but I'll just show you so you can take this green. Let's say it was too dark and there's a lighter version of it. Or if you wanted to change a completely and figured over here, or maybe you wanted the turquoise. That's pretty too. Now I don t. Okay. Now I think I'm gonna take my navy and go down to here and see how that looks. That's a pretty palette. And this is dark enough to be a dark. So I'm done. I click the check mark. It goes to here. If I click Save, it's going to save into my Adobe account. But you don't even need to do that. You don't. If you don't want to, you can click Image. And there it is. And then I just like to screenshot it, which is these two buttons if you don't know how. And then when you leave, just go out of the app to your photos. Go to your photo library, and there it is. So it's a lot of fun to play with. And it'll get you, if nothing else, it'll get you thinking when you see beautiful things. Let me go back to my color inspiration album. It'll get you learning to think in terms of what you like that you're out there that you see. These are all photos I've taken because I thought the color palette was interesting. Now this one is simple, but you've got sort of a light blue, the teal, the coral, pink, and even this light cream. Plenty of colors to make something packaging that I thought was pretty here is, I don't know if this was fabric or I thought these scarves and anthropology made a nice color palette. This was a purse somewhere. This was a whole display of these types of bags that store I went crazy taking pictures. And this was in Austin, Texas. I think. This is the Chihuly exhibit in Nashville. I thought it'd be fun to pull some colors from there. This is another store display table setting. If you go into these beautiful stores where they're designing these display windows and just displays. They know what they're doing. They see the trend colors. They now how to make things look like something you'd want to buy. They know how to appeal to us, so I pay attention in the public at this couch. I mean, are you kidding me? That reminds me of South America. And here I, this was a classic painting. I don't remember the artist, but I thought those would be fun colors to pull from. So you get the idea. There's color palette here. So let's find Adobe Capture. I can get lost in it. 4. Element Practice: All right, so when you're trying to create certain elements, as I said, you know, certain brushes work better for other, for certain things. So like the round when you're doing leaves for something like this is one of my favorite colors. It's just a, it's called black blue. I use a lot of indigo for my dark so you can make it by just taking Payne's gray is also a black blue. Or you can take a blue and adds lactose. Pretty easy, right? But for leaves, you're, you're really, when you're coming down here and say doing a leaf, coming into the page is really practice. You can practice brush control so that you can get your stem nice and thin. And then learn how to put the brush down, apply pressure which makes it faster and then lift it up. And this is so meditative. I mean, I could do this and have done this for just relaxation. Hi, depth-first a lot Franklin leaves are beautiful and it's just fun to see how the paint moves and soaks in or doesn't soak in and where it, you know, when you lift up your tip, you get that little dark thing. In each brush is gonna be different. So this is the Winsor Newton Cotman brush. Let's see if I switch to around similar sized Princeton velvet touch. You know, what effect we get, it'll probably be pretty similar, but that's what's fun about practicing. And I encourage you to spend time getting to know your supplies, your materials, your brushes, your papers. So it's feeling similar. Not quite as smooth though is the Windsor noon. I'm feeling like I'm having to It's not like I'm having to pull anymore, which is kinda interesting. You could try a shader to. One of these angled brushes with leaves. Would be something like this. Needs a lot more paint and it's not feeling like yeah, I don't, I don't like how it feels as much. But it makes an interesting and of the leaf. So anyway, you get the idea. We could do this forever. Kinda makes it more feathered or at the end. So leaves, practice, leaves and all types of practice with your brushes. Let's see what you like. And then for using a liner, this, these are long bristles. So you really want to load it up with pain. And they'll allow you to take your line along way because the bristles along its holding paint. So you can play with these. And now obviously it does not go on as smoothly when you're putting it on top of layers of acrylic paint and pastels and everything else like I usually am. But you can get, and you can also get just some lines like that. I've tried leaves with this. And as long as you have plenty of paint, it can begin to fun to start it. Too little pressure, but it's hard to control. Now, for leaves, this one's a little sicker. The Winsor Newton. Let's see what kind of leaf it can do. Make sure you have enough paint in your brush. Yeah, it's kinda square. So this is more, I use this more for shapes like this. If you wanted to make a long, you know, leave like that, it would work right? So all the different tools available to us. Alright, let's talk a little bit about dots because that's painting dots you would think would be really easy. And I mean, it isn't hard. But I find that it can be frustrating if you've got the wrong brush. So for example, if I tried to take this round, number five, let's just get some paint on it. Now it's really watery, so they might they might work. Yeah, the tiny ones are working because I'm only doing the tip. But if I want a bigger one, hits, if I really load the brush, I can get some decent dots. That's the key with dots is your brush has to be really full of paint or water. So you're just going like that. Otherwise you'll get these kind of me dry it off a little bit. Scratchy, things like that that are really not what we're going for. And that's what a round brush often does. So you're sitting there going, Why can't I get that? So that you end up painting like this, which is really time-consuming if you're doing a bunch and even that shape is not that good. So that's why I said really loaded up or keep experimenting. Because whatever reason, some of these Winsor Newton rounds that I've found make better dots. Something about the end of the shape at the end seems to work better. Let's try a different color. Let's try some current read. But it may seem crazy, but I would practice your dots and make, you know, get them fully loaded. Brush with some water in there. And see how I'm not getting a dot with this one. So I can either add more or I could just move and say, Well, I'm not going to go frame. You know, it doesn't have to be a perfect God, I can like the shape. Just a mark. So it just depends on what you're trying to do. The point is that to experiment because it depends on your paint, amount of water, the materials, and everything else. That's why I said the posca pens are so great if the color works for dots. All right, I wanted to think if there's anything else I wanted to show you about practicing. So lines, I would have firewood practice lines to whether you use if you don't have a liner. Just because you might want some really thin lines and you just want to practice that brush control. You're barely touching the paper. And there were times where I really want a thin line and I I don t think about it and then I end up doing something that I didn't want. Of course, you can use your pens to thin lines. But even that is worth practicing. I would just do pay a few pages like this. Kinda get your solvent warmed up, gets, helps you get to know your materials to. We already talked about how the pastels work. The crayons use them sometimes to highlight over things like this. We could even take, if we wanted to pass out over this. Do something like that. There's just kinda endless possibilities. Sometimes I'll take the gold pan and make leaves like this. Or I'll use it to do minds on leaves like that. Circles, thin lines, squigglies. You get the idea. Alright? So practice these things until you feel like you've got a sense of them. And of course, we practice every time we paint, right? So all right, let's get creative. 5. Underpainting: Alright, I've got a piece of acrylic paper, 11 by 14, and watercolor paper is fine. I've just been experimenting with mixed media paper, watercolor paper. Just always experimenting, always learning. But no need to go and buy acrylic paper. Anyway. We're going to paint. Color on the background is the first layer. It's just gets us past that blank page. Then we can move on from there. So I'm going to I like to have a turquoise in the background. And you don't have a turquoise, you can take a blue and a lemony yellow, medium cad yellow little turn it green. But sometimes a cerulean blue and a lemony yellow will make a turquoise and Nova color. Which is my favorite like mid-price point. Acrylic paint, has a has what they call a turquoise. I'll show it to you. They loved turquoise. But it's not his turquoise. He is, I like to me more like a It's a little turquoise you but I'll show you what I mean. I'm, I'm just going to add a touch of this yellow light and I've just reordered the yellow light and ANOVA color because I used it all up. Let's see how I've done. It's just really becomes a yummy, what I call turquoise beautiful colors. So that's how I get the total of his underneath here. Using the other side, there's some dried paint there. And I'm just going to paint some sections loosely. Remember, we're just actually want a bigger brush for this. Let's just get a big one so we don't, we go more quickly. And I'm going to really just paint the background and pieces like this. I'm not hung up here about shape, goods completely random, we're just getting color on the paper. Let's see. Now they're added too much and it turned it green. Is just the tiniest bit, is all you need. A little bit of a more of a jade color now, hasn't color fascinating. That's probably enough turquoise. And I'm not using any sort of fine quality brush. This is a off-brand. It's called Creative Mark, but it's an art student grade brand. So I'm going to do some of that. I will take it over to the edge. Just so I don't end up with another color over here. I can just take up some water and take a light version to the edge. You can see you can most of these papers, you can scrub to some extent without creating problems. And I'm going to grab a yellow. I'm going to just clean my brush a little bit so that I don't end up with too much of the turquoise. And I'm using a paper towel, it just helps get the water out. And then some of the last bits of paint. I didn't do a thorough brush cleaning. I just did a quick rinse. And I don't like using colors straight out of the bottle because they're so sometimes, so I'm going to knock this back with a tad. The tiniest little bit of you can use a read. Anything in the red family. Knock back really bright color. So I'm really just mixing right here on the paper. White is also a great way to calm things down, alter things. Okay. Just getting getting a cupboard. And let's see. I do like to have, if there's any rhyme or reason to the first layer here, it would be to have something on the dark side in the middle. Basically, not on the edge, just to try to bring the eye. And so here's a really intense fellow, blue deep by Nova. And how do their Payne's gray, but I have this Payne's gray by Liquitex. Just going to mix that to kind of soften this fellow is just super intense. Payne's gray is a great dark inner, lives, a cool dark enough, so it will cool your colors and dark in them. If you want to darken them in a warm way, you would use burnt umber. And I am, I've got a mini class on color and developing. So look for that. I'll bring this down to here. Ended up being more Payne's gray. If you find that it's not getting into the paper, you can just grab a bit of water, bring this over here, and use the water to get it to spread. Try not to get everything to work just because, you know, then it's just going to take longer for that layer to dry. And of course I don't want to wait. All right, so now I'm gonna do this. Who could do a magenta pink? This is a quinacridone, red, which is very much on the pink side. I'm taking out my I'm washing my brush a little again so that it's not mine. Some paint left in it a little bit, but I don't want it too much or it'll turn this red purple. Again. It's needs to be altered somewhat. I'll try the white just to I don't know if this funny pay paint straight out of the jar, just have a look. If we just look, maybe artificial is the word I'm looking for. I'm not sure. Until I add something and I can add anything, I'm going to have his grab a bit of yellow to this, some more weight. But until you add something, That's what makes colors theorem is adding something. You got to love these these Nova Color colors. You know, they just, they really come to life when you mix. They don't look like much in the bottle, but look at that, look at that color right there. You know, it's the quinacridone, red with some of the yellow and some white, making me very happy. I think I'll just continue to go lighter here and take what's on my brush and I'm just dipping it in my way, which is mucking up my way. But I'm careful. White is the color you use most. You can see I'm mixing brands. This is an acrylic. So flat matte. And so when I add it to acrylics just helps make the acrylic paint more matt rather than glossy. Probably paints not philosophy, but it's definitely, I would say like a satin finish. And it's just I would rather have a matte finish. So sometimes I use white gouache, which is Matt, or a white matte acrylic. I'm also experimenting with mediums, Matt mediums to find one that I think I might have found that having success with the Liquitex ultra matte medium, because the problem with mediums is they tend to reduce opacity. And I don't want that. I want highly opaque color that is met, which is why I use gouache. Gouache. It's crazy. It comes in little tubes. So I'm experimenting with ways to make the Nova Color and other acrylics have more of a matte finish. Okay, so this layer is done. It's wet. I can feel it, so we're going to let it just kinda let it dry before we continue with nice and dry. And we'll come back to it. 6. First Layer of Shapes: This is drying out. And so for the water that had scribbled on it. And so now this is again just continuing the color exploration and inspiration exercise and adding some shapes. Summary sheet, inspiration and shape library, building up color and shapes. And so then we'll get to details and textures. So I think I'm going to, in terms of like what color I choose Next. I think about a color that's different than these because I want it to show, but not radically different. So I think I'm gonna do maybe some shapes in a green for, to start with. I'm going to take some cobalt blue or any blue and some yellow. And always white. I'll get my other, I want to show you the other way that I use weight a lot over here. By the easel. I keep this white in. And this is nothing special way to manage it the way I think Liquitex basics. And I just use so much weight that it's easier for me to keep it in this. I got this on Amazon and then I don't have to, you know, be opening. Sounds ridiculous what I say at opening the jaw, closing the door, opening the dark. But I use so much weight that it's easier to do that. Okay, That's just not unexciting green. Not everything has to be exciting. I realized that we have a lot of exciting colors already on here. But I just wanted something a little more pizzazz. And yeah, just fun to I think I'll just do like some start with. I call those my pots. Some shapes. And I just think about 3s and 5s when I'm adding color, can make some marks over here. So that's three sets of the color. And that's enough. But I could go for some small appear just because pink and green is so pretty. And I can alter the color anytime I want a bit of weight. And then maybe helped do get a different brush and do some some lines on this color. And that would complete my five. We're just adding interest at this point, building up interest. Okay, So now maybe I'll do these colors here. So pretty and go get like a white. Get my white. With the green in it, which is fine, little bit of green sign. And add some red to see what that does. To give me a really pale pink. Okay. I'm going to add like a C here, maybe here. These arches is funny. I grew up in South America and I just loved purchase a home. But I just think they're inviting their tummy. They said Come on in. And I was lucky when we moved here to Florida. We have we have one arch in the house and it's kinda the amine arch which I really love. I don't know, for me, they sort of say commodity in to the paintings. Come on M, and then we'll make marks that invite the viewer to stay. Because we got to get them in and then we want them to stay. That's basically the bottom line of composition. I also think that lines that can look like a garden walkway like here's a kind of a natural place maybe to do what could be another kind of way in So the colors I'm putting on top, since the ones below are so vibrant colors on top or, you know, not dog, but a little bit toned down. Just because everything can't be a star of the show. Let's grab some orange. Orange you can make. I just happened to have something here. But of course, I will be using my dirty brush, which mixes immediately and gets me a better color. I think I'll just do something. I love, orange against turquoise. I think I'll just do some kind of rounded shapes in here. Adding just even a touch of white will give you a lot more opacity and just something to the color. Now, if you if it feels like it's too like it about almost got to pass Delhi, then I can get a bit of randomness and take it back. Maybe I'll do kind of a almost like a rock sculpture. You see those? We can do the same thing over here. You see one of the shapes I put in my Pinterest was water lilies floating around in the pond and they kinda look like this. Also, pebbles and sand. I mean in the rocks actually in a beach or at a creek bed or a riverbed can just be kind of shapes like this, but in different directions. I like to do things like that too. So maybe I'll put some in the bright brush that I'm using now, which is the square, is really good for making that kind of mark. I think it's time for a big leaf somewhere. So I have to decide where and I have to decide what color I want it in. And I'm wondering about a lavender color like a periwinkle. But let's just see what happens when we mix the blue here because I do like the discovery. Oh, look at that pretty soft gray. The discovery of color that comes when you're mixing like this. That's really pretty and I could use some quieter colors, right? So let's go ahead and make this the big leaf. Not a periwinkle, but if it's too dull or if it's not exciting me and we can, I can always paint over it and it is showing up a little more purple. So I'm gonna do a branch coming out the top here. It's not funny as soon as I put it on the yellow because yellow and purple are complimentary, meaning they are opposite on the color wheel, we're close to opposite. When you put it on yellow, it starts to look more purple. Here. It just looked like a very, a very pale mob here it looks more lavender. And I love that, that activity of color discovery because I could set out to try to make that color. Now I might be able to if I wrote it down, but of course they never do. So. But I have if I said, well, I want to make a car like this. First of all, I wouldn't have really thought of a color like this, but then when it appears like this, and it's such a fun discovery, and you say, oh yeah, I want to use that color. That's what makes each painting unique to. Alright, I'm looking for a third place to put this color because I love it. I'm not ready to start doing dots and things, you know, the decorating. So I'm looking for a place I can put some shapes. And also letting that dry because I'd like to do a second coat so that it's nice and opaque. Let's see here. I wonder I could, I know what I'll do. I'll take a really small brush and just do a couple of things. Here. It really helps to have, you know, that shape pattern library to think about and referred to write, gonna go for the second coat on these. That's the nice thing about acrylic is how quickly it dries, right? I think we're going to let these various parts dry. 7. Second Layer of Marks: This is dry and I was thinking about what color I want next. And there is a balloon that is going to pull that oil pastel. It's kinda like this. And then I'm going to do a little darker than that. And it's just the cobalt blue mixed with white. So let's see how we like that in terms of what to do with it. I'm still thinking about that. So you can see that I dip my brush right into the vein. But I tried to be careful to not follow. When I'm working with larger pieces, I put some of the paint on the palette. That's the kind of periwinkle I was thinking about before. So maybe it's just didn't want to go away. And I think I wanna do like some, something larger over here with it. And so I may just kinda come down here like this. That's still pretty against the colors. Now I'm just kind of making loser bids of this color just to have some of it in there. Really pops, doesn't it? So pretty I think I'm going to have to grab some while it's made and do some dots on these leaves. Dots, well, dots are interesting. You would think they'd be so easy. But they actually take some practice and the right brush. So these are gonna make pretty big ones. Those brushes, look at it. The pain has come off it, but I think it's a size eight. Could be a sex. Let's see if that's a good size dot. Okay? So the key with that is lots of paint on the brush. And not one of these brushes that has that really sharp tip because then you just keep hitting the tip. But this is a round brush, Winsor Newton brush. And it just doesn't have a super pronounce tip on it. So if I really fill it up with paint and I make sure my pain is not too dry. It's going to give me a nice dot. You can use, you can use all kinds of things to make dots. People use the back of the brush but just a piece, basically a piece of wood like this. But then you're having death. He doesn't hold any paints, so you're having to go back and forth a lot with the dots. I'm just trying to look random or fight the urge to line them all up and make it more natural. If I wanted to swallow her that I would just use my smaller brush. Can also use a Posca marker if it's a color and we will, if it's a color that you want for another paint marker, is giving me fits. This is why it's good idea to do that practice. I want random sizes and I'm getting the paint, keeping the paint nice and moist. This is this one's going faster because I added more water. I've got a whole page that I want to do as a background for a pattern. And I started out, it's I want to scan it in. So I've got the whole page that I'm working on doing doubts on. And then my gosh, I'm only like a third of the way done, but I think it'll be a really cool background for a fabric print. Once I get all those dots and if I get them in, I'm having to just continually get that paint on the brush. You know, get it to drain down. So I have to keep water on it. You can vary the shape a little bit by turning your brush too. I'm not looking here for perfectly round dots. I am looking though for them not to be scraggly. And that's what happens when there's not enough paint on the end of the brush? I want them to be full looking. They don't have to be circular. But I don't want like scraggly stopped coming off them. Who knew you could do a whole lesson on dots. Okay. So that's really pretty. I like that color. If I want a second coat anywhere, maybe a little bit there. What next? I think a pill, warmer green like a lime green would be pretty. So actually I might be able to work with this. I like to try to build colors off my last color. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But let's see what happens if we add some of the light yellow to this. Then do I want a great brush? For? Which shape do I want? Depends on what I do. So I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. That's a nice bright green, greenish yellow, yellow, green. I think I'll make some circles over here and then maybe put in a leaf or a branch or something like this. I'm going to switch to a different brush because I want to make something coming out of this pot. So one of the ways to do this is to draw it in with a similar color crayon for colored pencil. So that you kinda have a sense of what it's going to end up looking like. And I think I'm going to make it kinda turn over this way and go into that pot. And then maybe another branch this way. Something up here. And I'm just going to, I think I'm going to do is do like a oval leaf. So I can kinda sketch this in with this cram. You probably can't see it, but you get the idea. This will end up being pretty good focal point because it's going to be large. So I'll paint that in probably with a round brush because it's too many either round. Well, two different things. The stem, I'll end up changing because I like my stems to be a different color than the leaves. So I can either paint the stem in now or I can wait till I finish painting the leaves. I've done it either way. So since I've got this brush, I'll just go ahead and paint the leaves and then we'll go back and figure this demo. Alright, so you can see that with certain colors with acrylic, you really have to do multiple coats. And luckily it drives files so I can just move from one to the other. Yeah. It's the color. I want it now, but it took several coats and then I can change the shape of these as I was painting on because I thought I want to make them more like a seed pod. One of the images that I captured in my shape library that those poppy seed pods of them. Just so cool. So it's going to play with that. And now I'm thinking about where else I want to use this color. So I think I might bring it up here to these peachy things that you can't see much. And do an outline around these. 8. Adding more Elements: Best thing that I find to use to do an outline is some sort of liner brush. This is the Princeton velvet touch number one. There are others, or if it's not, you don't have to have a liner. It just hold more paint than say, just a regular small brush with a shorter bristles. So it makes it a bit easier to get the lining effect. It just means that you can make a longer line before having to put more paint in your brush. I don't need to be exact with these. It's just a bit of color so that these become more noticeable. And you'd have to have quite a bit of this. Another great thing to practice, put the paint on your brush and have it be watery. Add more water to get a little more fluidity. I don't have to do them all. I actually usually don't just think it's kind of I don't know. There's something about not making a predictable and I don't I don't know, there's like having one or a few. Reminds me of groups of people and clicks and how sometimes people, we all feel like we're on the outside of something. I don't know. I don't want to read too much into it, but all right. I like what that lime green did. I'm looking around and I'm thinking that once something here, I don't have to fill every space. I have to tell me that myself that all the time, right? I do not have to fill every space. And we were gonna do stems. The stems I think will be really nice to do in the same dark blue that's back here. Which is really what is really an indigo. So we can make more with I will the Payne's gray and the blue horse, since I haven't handy, I can grab my black blue gouache and we could get those stems down. I'm not going to use the liner for that glow because it doesn't give me the control that that I want for that kind of thing. It's harder to control. So I'm just going to get just a small brush. This is a two, but you can even use a four and just, you know, just gently use the tip of it. Some of this like blue, this is my Turner. I use it all the time for axons. Then I think I'll use it to make the seed pod things though. Just the whole circle here at the end. But I'm going to add water so that it's a little more fluid. Is just a suggestion of those seed pods. I kinda look like. I'm not gonna say it. Well, okay, I will say after now we're going to start looking like eyeballs because I said it, oh my gosh. Okay. Just put that out of our mind. And so they've got this little brush out in the Navy. I'm going to play around with some hexanes, other places. There's too much pink here, you know? So I think this would be a great place to do. Some lines. Maybe come up here. I don't really like the way those guys look. I didn't like those splotches of late. I don't know why. So we'll do that. Yeah. I like it better. Still don't have anything down here. I'm thinking about what can I do down here and what color would it be in? So my turquoise, which I've gotten the background, I could bring down here. And we'd have like a lot of turquoise on this side and nothing on this side. I think what would look really cool though, is some dirt turquoise dots in here. So I think we'll do that since that's what his coming to me now. And then we'll figure out this part later. Kind of got to go with what, what idea comes up when it comes up. This is a turquoise I'm using is the aqua green by Turner acrylic wash. And I like to use the glass for accents. You can use acrylic, of course. And I'm using this little brush because I want to make a almost like a, you know, it's not quite a dot, just little shapes of color. Think of them as maybe pebbles because they want them irregular. You know, those riverbed pebbles maybe. But I knew that this turquoise would really pop here, which would be fun. Had it a bit more water, which is making this flow better. Watch it can get really sticky and derive fast almost as soon as you put it on the palate. So don't be afraid to. It is a watercolor, just an opaque watercolor. So don't be afraid. You don't want to add too much water unless you don't mind losing the opacity. But you can always do another coat to I'm trying to make these just kinda meander. You know, I've got that turquoise out and you know, that I'm going to want to do something else with it. That is so pretty what we could do. We could do, I'm gonna need a bigger brush around, brushed some some tropical he had this little do you know those tropical plants that kinda come off from the bottom and jungle plants will do something like that. It's going to need a few coats. But I love how they meander. Actually have one. I don't know the name of it on the side of my house except the deer keep eating it. So it doesn't really look like this right now. I'm not going to paint what it looks like. Wow, my gosh. I love to paint little chunk taken out. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I like that. Happy, happy. Right now I'm thinking that there was like this area here. And I'm wondering if I want any of this up here at all or do I want to me? Because it's a little quieter up there. I mean, you might not be my thing. Nothing about this as quiet and you would probably be right. But relatively speaking, it's quieter here than here, and there's nothing wrong with that. So I'm debating was myself, do I want to bring this? Because this is a very, you know, Look at me color. Do I want to have that up there? If I do, would it be it would definitely be a small thing. I'm thinking that it might be fun to try something that kind of combs meandering down like this. Well, let's try it. You can always decide you don't like it. But I'm going to look for an angled brush because it, I'm gonna make some thin leaves with us. So again, we can draw it in with the CRAN. These are the neo color to grams. I'll grab the turquoise. And I'm just thinking that it comes in kinda like this. It's going to overlap a little bit and have been leaves. I'm not gonna actually draw them all. I don't think maybe I wanted on extra thin because that way, if I don't cover the whole thing almost like a palm leaf, they don't cover the whole thing with paint. I don't, I don't have to worry about the Cranmer showing. Although since it's Neil color, water-soluble and everything I've used here is acrylic or AgCl gouache. If I wanted to, if I did have some of this remaining, I could let the whole thing dry really well and then take a bit of water and rub out those green marks. So here's where you can make a decision. Really a design decision. I could take this palm leaf behind this, this leave or on top. So what I'm gonna do is turn it around, take a look and kind of just a mad, I'm trying to imagine that palm leaf coming down here versus behind it. I think I want to bring it on top. Personal preference, so I'm gonna go for it. I'm going to stop painting. They're stopped coloring there because I want to do it with paint. Okay, I really liked that. I'm glad I went over the other leaf and it's going to need a second coat because it just, you know, it's a little translucent. So I will do that here in a sec when it dries. But these are things that bring your eye into the painting. So your AI comes in, comes down here. This almost keeps you from going out. I think, or I guess you could argue that you follow it out as a painting, but then you come up and you see that and you're drawn back in. Maybe you come down these stairs, something like that. So that's how I loosely think about composition and about keeping my viewer inside the painting. I'm going to, Yeah, I can start on the second code is already trying. Also the way that it's hard for a treat. I appreciate the time it takes to do these leaves when it's on time-lapse. But you can see that to get the shape of practice a lot and lifting the brush, the pressure. And I'm going moving the brush the other way so I get up, point your toe mean case you can see on time-lapse. So if I go this way, I get a nice point on that side. But then I have to clean it up on this side going this direction. So you'll see me doing that. That's if this is the lucky one, I wanted a really clean look for this obviously doesn't need to be that way. Again, personal preference. I've just had people say, gosh, leaves are harder than they look. And I now talk about how they have. They do require practice. Brush control. And it's learning the brush and each brushes different, even if from one round to another one brand to another, one size to another. Okay? We're going to let this dry completely and then come back to it. 9. Adding Interest: Alright, let's get some inspiration for taking this painting to the next step. So here's one that I did earlier this week. And so here's the one we're working on. And I like to get inspiration from. As we've talked about, nature, pictures, shapes, just you start seeing the world differently and then your work ends up becoming a catalogue. So I have this one and then the ones that I've gotten the sketchbook. As long as I just keep exploring and keep adding new elements. Then there's so much to look at and say, oh, let's try some of the header, our member, how much I liked those, those white ink squigglies or I remember how much I liked doing these gold lines on those leaves. Referring to these, this, and anything else we want to use for reference. I started to think about wanting to do I really love this leaf here. And I thought that might look really pretty kinda coming off of here. The other thing, I also really love the shape of this pot. So I could either I could do a small one down here potentially, or potentially, I could just paint over this one and reshape it. That's an idea that I do save the finer line work. You can call it decorating or you can call it adding jewelry to your art for accessorizing. It's like you have an outfit and then doesn't quite look put together until you quit your accessories on. But I save that for last because then I just That's just the way that I do like the gold pan and stuff like that. So we'll do that towards the end and the finer pens, but we're not ready for that stage yet on this, I'm thinking I want to do the leaf thing here. And I also like these little leaves in here. So I want something in here. But I don't know what. Yeah. So let's start with the leaf branch in this kind of style. And I even like that color because it's soft. It's not going to call attention to itself a lot, but it's a little bit muted. It's sort of a blue gray. I've been taking hash blue Holbein acrylic wash, and then hello and then darkening at it and then adding a touch of green. But you can also make it, well, let me just make it with you and that way we'll make it together. Basically, it's a blue-gray with a touch of green. And it's really pretty. I just watched all my brushes and so now they're all sitting here in front of me. I finally divided up my brushes. This is just a little tip because I have my not great brushes and then my brushes and I try not to abuse the better ones. So what I did is I clicked the better ones in a separate color jar way. That's not hold, that is wet. Okay. Alright, so let's do to make this color. If you don't have this, which most of you are not going to, then we're going to start with a dark, which can be, I think it would be a black, payne's gray. And then we'll add a little bit of green, a little bit of blue and some white. My Payne's gray goal was here when we were working. Just working nearly disappeared. Liquid objects, Payne's gray, we will use that little bit of blue. I'm just trying to stick with colors that I think you'll have that kind of blue-gray and look fresh for that kind of leave as a smaller round brush. This is a size four. That should be good. We're gonna get some blue and mix it with the Payne's gray. I'm just going to need some white and a touch of green here. I really like having my wife that way. So my PC to access it. So it's just a blue-gray and I'll get just a smudge of green. The only trouble with these, I love these little Liquitex bottles, but they do that even though it's just stopped out and then they get flagged. And I just grabbed my Nova color green. That's the benefit of these jars. They don't they don't get clogged. So this is just a color that, you know, obviously you can make any color you want, but I just wanted to show you how you can get a color that's I don't know, isn't neutral. It's pretty and I'm trying to say, I think I want it a bit lighter so that it shows up against that periwinkle. Maybe a bit more green. Everyone's read in a book on color. I think it's called The Secret Lives of color that I have. And it's fascinating, but there was someone quoted in there the same, the best colors are the ones that you cannot describe, that you cannot use, can't eat them. You can't just say it's green. This is kinda reminded me of that because it's sort of grades, sort of blue, green. Alright, that's good to start with. Let's see. What do you think I'm going to do? I'm going to add some of this blending medium. This is for watercolor. You can add it to gouache. But I've also tried to use acrylic. And it works fine and it just kind of keeps things more moist. It makes it a little easier to work with. But the matte medium, that's probably what would be a better way. I wouldn't buy this unless you're going to use gouache and watercolor a lot. Okay, let me take this other blue paint off my brush. And I'm going to kind of draw this out like we have before. A gray Neil color Cram. I'm gonna have this kinda coming in sort of on this purple thing. But it'll branch off a little there and maybe have a branch coming out here. And then this particular plant just has these leaves that come out. And I've got usually five, but 35 once in awhile if four of those. So I'm going to just sketch those in here. So I don't have to be exact with, I'm just kinda getting, getting an output. I'll add more with paint, but I'm just getting the location of them. Can have them turning different ways. I can have them varying in length. Let's paint those in and see what we think. This again is a little more. Take some practice just to get the believes the way I want them, I like them a little thicker at the end. I'll show you what that thick. So here's what happens for, here's what you can do when that happens. Wipe it off. And don't paint in that spot again till it dries that brush. Once I put all my pain on, it was way too big. And I really kinda wanna delicate leaf. So I'm going Wait, I'm going down to the three round. We'll see how that works. We're in let that dry them. So we'll start somewhere else. Yeah, that's much better. So I can get the end of the leaf thicker by pushing down and then lifting up. And I'm me, I'm trying not to I'm trying to make them an organic shape, not not, not live. I'm trying to avoid straight lines. That's what I'm trying to say. Sometimes when I'm painting my brain, the words words don't come out right. Two parts of the brain engaged, I guess. Okay. So I like that. I'm thinking that I could bring that color down into here with something. So I think I like these kinds of marks. They look like seeds almost, you know, that maybe fallen from a plant. So I'm gonna just going to lighten it up a little bit and do some of those inside here. I like this color. I'm thinking it might be nice for the lines on my seat paths, so I'm going to add a little more white to lighten it up more and get my liner. Liner brush likes to hide because it's so small. But every time. 10. We are Getting There!: I actually decided to use, this is a newer brush and I really like it. This brand, this Winsor, Newton Cotman, they're not expensive designer brand. But I'm really liked these brushes. I have several. What's weird is, okay, so this is a size one, size two. What I like about their round brushes, they are they're not extremely pointy at the end. I think it'll be fine to make these lines will see. And if it's too thick, will adjust. Cloud of it is just having the right pressure. Okay. So you saw me start and then I want to put that color on. It was just too light, so I darken to pack up with some more blue and some more gray and went over those areas. So I really like that. Those pods are pretty, let's see, not quite ready to get the oil pastels out. Still thinking about anything else I want to do with this color. Before I move on, we have that stem to do to maybe just come over these, define them a little bit. Not that made me think. I feel nice coming down the center of these. Just I'm pressing down because I get to the end of the leaf to make it wider at the base. Oh, and I know we need to stand up here. So now that we have this color out, it's come up here and do this stuff. So one of the things I like to do is the same color variation, same color, calm, the same color. So I've got the darker gray that we did these in. And now I'm going to come over since it's dry and do a little bit later, it's mostly dry. Just hit badly you some of the leaves with a little bit later being careful not to put my hand and my already painted parts. This just gives depth and interest. You could use a different color to, you. You know, you don't have to use the same color. You could go over these with a light green or something darker. Just a change in value. So darker or lighter or changing color? No, I don't know what I wanna do that stem and yet so I'm not going to mess with it. I want something on the top of this. This, and I keep thinking about that jug shape coming up here and doing something like that. But I don't want that in this color. So let's make another color and turn that into a jug. See how that works out. A lot of experimenting when you don't know, you know, when you paint and you're not coming at it with a very specific plan. That's what I I like. I mean, just you get used to the anxiety that comes with that. So I don't have to stay with that color. I don't mind it. It's a little it's not bad. It's actually a pretty green. Let's see though. If I just mix some yellow and with this gray color, if we can get close to it, probably need more blue. Document a bit. Too much dark. A little bit of Payne's gray goes a long way. Pretty close. Okay. I don't like Nepal. You can always go over it and if you don't like it. So I'm going to look at my little Jones and I made a little different shape. But who cares? Please? Jugs. Always remind me of my upbringing in South America. The markets, you know, the pottery was a long, long time ago. Sometimes it even carry them on their heads. You and I are gonna be the only ones who know that this wasn't this way from the beginning. Oh, that's a cute, cute little pod drug, Pratt. And when it dries, we'll decorate. It. Might be a nice color for our stem. What would be, where's my little stem brush? I think it's already got that colorblindness, got the gray in any way. I'm going to brighten it up a little just because I think a little touch of bright over there would be nice. So something little like that, like a little stem, a little mark can be quite dramatic. I think it's the Florida influence. I see leaves like that all the time. What else needs a little touch of lime green? Let's look here for some inspiration. These teeny tiny dots are pretty. Mr. some of those. I keep wanting to do something to stem up here. See if I like this. No worries. Wipe it, dry it. Right now I'm at the stage where I'm going. Okay, what do I like and what's bothering me? These orange things need another something on top of them, but we can do that with oil pastel. I would love some little pattern in here on this vase. So I'd probably go look at my, we could either do something like this, you know, with lines, but we have a lot of lines with lines layer and here, these are kinda lines. I mean, it would be fine. I could do a fine line there, but they don't want to because of the lines already in the seed pods. So I'm going to think of something else. Some other insult probably go on into Pinterest and look at some patterns on vessels and see what I think they're. That sounds interesting. Then we'll do some oil pastel stuff and some gold pen, and we're getting close to being done. 11. Finishing Touches: Okay, I've found an extremely exciting vessel on Pinterest. Look at my gosh, recoup pottery by Stephen forums. Incredible. So obviously, that's a lot to try to do here, but I want to use it as an inspiration. So see that really light turquoise. Maybe do some dots of that and then come in with the metallic. And what we can do here, That's this inspires is that it's really irregular. You know, you have teeny tiny gold dots and then some larger ones. So between the turquoise and a gold will do something like that here. Alright. This is a piece of black paper which you can see is well used on one side. It just it's mixed media paper. You can even use something that comes in the mail that's dark, but it just helps to, when you're working with pins to seek to prime them, to get them to work. Even pencils, you know, to say, okay, is this making the mark I want it to make. It just shows up better on black or gray. So I'm going to show you that because paint pens often need to be primed. So but for the turquoise bits of this, I think I want to, you know, maybe the oil pastel would give us more of that texture. That was in that picture. But it's a lighter, it's a variety of pastels, I mean, colors. So we can just kind of put some of these n and then go over with the gold. This is a different brand. And boy, do you notice a difference? I hope, grabbed it because I liked the color. This is crepe Hi, but it's just not, it's not anywhere close to the quality of the Mongo. You see like see how that's just sitting on top. This is much cream year. Maybe. I can feel the difference in the coverage is better. Nothing about this sort of exploration is, you know, if I don't like how this face looks when I'm done, I can paint over it. I can scrape a little bit of pastel off or wipe it off, rub it off and just paint over it with acrylic. So remembering that the shapes varied in color and random. And let's do some cold now. By priming is called priming, you shake it. And then if you've used it ready Three, suddenly it'll come right out. But if you haven't, you'll have to pump it to get the ink out. So I'm just gonna make some random shapes, marks. I feel like it needs home late. We're going to try something. This will be too dark. But if I take the ink, the color from this and use a brush to de, intensify it. Watered down basically. Can you get some of this color in here? Then I take my wet brush. Basically I'm treating the pen like paint. So a cool idea. But I don't think it goes with this. I think I need a more I don't know. I just don't like it. So I'm going to remove it before it gets too dry. And you'll see what's involved with redoing something like this. Especially after you put oil pastels on it. That's when it gets a little more tricky. So I've dried, I've gotten the ink best I could, and now I'm basically rubbing to get that oil pastel. This is real life art. This is what it is. It's, you know, playing, experimenting. I think that it was just too complex of a, an effect at trying to get I think it would have been fun to do if you were doing the whole face of the whole composition was a vase or a bigger part of it. But it's hidden back here. So those kind of marks kinda look interesting, don't they? Kind of like that. I'm not funny. I rubbed it off and now I kinda like it. Maybe a few more of those. But the gold pen derived into kind of a coppery that, oh, that reminds me. I have a copper posca pen but I hardly ever use. So if we did something like that, might have to just rub it in if it's too. You know, I kinda just wanted some interest on this pot. I don't really want it to be a main feature. So I'm just kinda making some sweetly lines. And I think I'll let them dry a little bit. Rub them so that they're an interesting texture. Now I'm wanting some of that turquoise back in there. Now we're getting a benefit of the paper texture, picking up the, the turquoise, which is nice. I think we're getting there. Interesting. Well, that's the kinda thing that I will leave and see, you know, how I feel about it tomorrow. I'm kind of liking it from here. I think I would have liked just a clean goal detail as much though. So we'll say, we'll leave it alone. Whenever you're not sure about something you've played with it on a wire, like we have their walk away, um, give it space. And so I know I wanted to add some dimension to these orange thing. So let's put it in another color in there and get some, something going on. These are just that made them more interesting and then these are need to be brought, just brought up a little bit. I don't know if this is kinda do it. Not really. You need a little bit lighter color. So I love about this set. There's so many colors. It's 48. I can't remember. It's been awhile. It's really lasted. I have a link to it on my website. Among your oil pastels, I have a link to pretty much all my favorite supplies. Let's see. I want to lighten that up more. What else do we have here? We know you can blend oil pastels with each other. Alright, let's get in there with the gold pattern. So I've got a number of, of writing things here. I've got my favorite white and gold pen, which I talked about in supplies. And then these are a little bit heavier pen and a much heavier pen. Sometimes I use these jelly rolls. Sometimes I use fluorescent pencil, it shows up. Sometimes, sometimes it doesn't. Just depends on what you have it on. Let's see if it shows up here. So interesting though. And then I've got the fluorescent Posca marker, which I don't know if I'm going to use. I haven't used fluorescent on this painting yet. Definitely want to bring this stem out. So I'm just kind of going down on top of the paint to kinda make it pop a little bit. See it makes a big difference. And I think it might be fun to, let's see about outlining some of these. You don't have to do them all. But they can just make some fun pop. Especially if you've got something overlapping like this line like this can help to find that it's on top or below. I think some little dots and nice seed pods would be good. Sometimes I just like to make like a little swirly. It reminds me of like I've got to Amanda via plant, which is a vein and it likes to climb. So I'll do this sort of Mark doesn't have to be an album speaking of binds, I like to take veins on the leaves sometimes and do something like this, like a tendril. Maybe go around some of these. These are kind of interesting. Just ignore them the whole time. They need something. I just don't know what yet. I want to do this. When you do paint on top of, I mean pen and other paint, you just try not to press too hard and just have a light touch. Just think of yourself putting the paint on top, not pressing it in. So good to kinda stand back. Thinking about what I wanna do here. Anything. I didn't really want to introduce too many more colors. This color is already in here. So I could make some. I could do nothing. They're fine. Maybe I'll just go like that. So in-between some of these users still not showing up. So I'm going to do something like this. So I kinda doing the posca on the edge of the oil pastel it, it will go on top. You just go really lightly. See right there I went on top of it. We'll pass it off. Just have to tread carefully. Looking at it, thinking about if it's done, looking at sometimes it gives me ideas is to, like I said, look at other pieces for inspiration, but also look at my materials. I might say, oh, you know, this pen or this pencil, Let's try some of that. I don't have any white on this. I don't have any fluorescent pink. That doesn't mean I need to. But I'm just noticing that. And I do like my kinda squiggly lines like these. So maybe I'll just do a few of those, but not in a way that's going to jump out too much. This is a jelly roll. I just like that. It's a small element in the midst of these larger ones. Kind of a surprise. You know, just a little bit of maybe the same thing with this thin gold because it gets much. And so basically you have three sizes of gold. Now, I'm going to look for a place to sign it. Sometimes I signed my whole name and sometimes I'm one like this where there's not much room. I will just find a space like this. And put the essay. I think I'm going to do it in this panel shows up there. So at this point I'm going to say it's done. And if I decide to make change here or anywhere, after giving it a day or two, I will be back. Otherwise, we'll call this one done. 12. Varnishing and Wrap Up : Okay, I wanted to show you my three favorite products for protecting paintings, whether they're in the sketchbook or on paper or even on Canvas. If I want to do with him here in the house, and I want to completely non-toxic product with no smell. I use this fixative and I do have links to all three of these in the supplies tab of my website. This is I don't really know what it's made out of, but it's amazing saying. So anyway, the only downside to this is it takes a bit longer. You spray it. It's not aerosol, so you spray it. Further directions on your peace, let it dry and then you might need a couple more coats just because of the spray is not doesn't give you the best coverage. However, I have used it on regular pastels, the real powdery kind where you can just rub that stuff off. Oil pastel paintings with all of those things on it. And it, It's sealed it. So I really like it. If I want to do something quicker and I want to keep working on a piece, particularly in the sketchbook, will use this workable, fixative I cry lawn. And it allows you to seal what you've done so far, but continue layering if you want. That can be helpful even if you, let's say used gouache or watercolor, things that can be reconstitute with water. You could spray a layer of this and it would make it permanent. And then you could layer on top. Then when I'm all done, I like the Liquitex matte varnish. It just it does get clogged in the tip here. And they do tell you right on the instructions that every time you use it, when you're done, turn it down and spray and kinda empty out the nozzle will of course, I ignore that and paid for it and had to soak the tip and hot water and yada, yada. So Philip, they say, alright, have fun. I hope you had as much fun taking this class. If I had putting it together, I love exploring all of these different styles, using color as our guide and shape and self-expression. And I love how you put together your inspiration library. You're really becomes your work because you're pulling from things that you're attracted to. Highlight pots and plants. You might like. Textures, you might like, you know, just whatever you like. You might like little, sometimes architecture so interesting, right? The little house, the house is done, or buildings or hills, wherever it is, you make it your own by following what you love and then you see how that manifests in your work. And so I encourage you to keep collecting inspiration. Sometimes if I'm not feeling inspired, or even sort of like where am I going in my heart right now? I'll pull out those are a look at the Pinterest page or I'll look at my photos and go and just, just get all excited. So it doesn't, it's just a great resource to have and I hope you keep creating, check out my other classes, there are a lot of them and everything from abstracts, the florals and more is coming. So thanks for joining me. Keep creating. Remember that the purpose of creating his to express yourself and to enjoy it and creative fulfillment, if you will. It's not necessarily to produce a masterpiece, and it's about nurturing your creative soul. So I hope you do that and we'll see you in the next class.