Transcripts
1. Introduction: [MUSIC] Hi. My name's Caitlin Hope Brown. I'm an artist from
Australia and I've been working in watercolors
for seven years. I learned watercolors with
two local Australian artists before spending
hundreds of hours practicing and having my style. I also spent three
years studying academic drawing techniques
in an online course, giving me a solid understanding of the fundamentals of art. I get a lot of my inspiration
for my art from nature, and it's an excellent subject
to learn painting with. Because there's such a
diversity of forms in nature, painting landscapes
is very forgiving. In this class, you will learn fundamental watercolor
techniques and paint a landscape of
a forest at sunset. We'll start by learning
basic skills that can be applied to any
watercolor painting. These include wet and
dry painting techniques, creating texture,
masking, and lifting. We do this in real-time and a beginner will
be able to follow along even if it's your first time painting
with the medium. We will also discuss materials
and reference spreaders before moving on
to a step-by-step tutorial for the forest picture. The skills taught
in this class will not only teach you how
to paint this scene, but give you the expertise and confidence to tackle other
paintings in the future. If you'd like to jumpstart your watercolor painting or improve your existing skills, this class is for you.
2. Project: [MUSIC] The project for this class will
involve two parts. First, you will
paint along with me to create a
techniques worksheet, learning all of the
individual skills that go into a
watercolor painting. Next, you will
follow the steps to draw and then paint
the forest scene. I encourage you to be active in the project gallery as you go. Post your in-progress photos to discuss your work with
other students and myself. Ask questions and get access to help with
your learning process. When you're finished, you can proudly share your
final painting. [MUSIC]
3. Materials: [MUSIC] We'll start
off with paper and I recommend
using paper that's specifically made for use
with water-color paints. These are the
current ones I have. This one was Waterford
and Fluid 100 brands, but I'll put some on the screen of other brands
that are also good. The best water-color papers
are actually made from cotton rather than wood pulp because
the cotton is more durable. Water-color papers also have
a coating on the surface of the paper that
helps the water sit on top and gives you
time to blend them. I like to use a medium
texture of water-color paper, which has a slight tooth to it. The paper is made through a
process called cold press, so look it up for
that on the label. The slight texture is
more forgiving because it gives you more time
before the water dries. However, paper texture
is a personal choice. If you want to try
out this smooth one, definitely have a
go at that too. Some photo-realistic
artists prefer the smooth paper because you can create finer details on it. Paper is definitely a supply where you get what you pay for, so I recommend getting the
best that you can afford. You need some basic
drawing supplies too, so go for a pencil and eraser. I've also got a kneaded
eraser which you can squish into whatever
shape you like. Not necessary, but
I find it handy. I've got a sharpener, a ruler, and some masking tape. Brand is not important
for any of these. You may notice in
the demonstration that I'm using a black pencil, but that is purely for
the camera's benefit. It's actually better to use a
graphite like a 2B or a HB. For painting you'll
need some palette. This one I just got for
about a $1 at a craft shop. You can get them basically anywhere if you'd rather
not go out and buy one, you can just use an old plate. There are two ways that
water-color paints come, and that is tubes and pans. I like tubes like on the left because they're
in a liquid form, which makes them very
easy and quick to mix. You can also let them dry
on your palette and they will reactivate when you
add water again later. You can also get pans like
the ones on the right, which comes as a solid block. The color is released when you touch them with a
wet paint-brush. If you want to mix a large
amount of paint from pans, it's best to spray
them with water to help resolve the paint first. Others feel like to travel
a lot with their paints may find pans more
practical for transport. Artists quality
brands will be more vibrant and less likely
to fade over time, but they can be excessive. Student quality
brands achieve it but not quite so
nice to work with. They might be a bit opaque
or rub off the page easily even when dry or they could make unexpected
colors when mixed. They are however, a
great place to start. If you haven't spent
a lot of money, you wouldn't be worried about
wasting your materials, especially while
you're learning. Either is fine, just
use the information I've given and choose
the best option for you. These are some other supplies
you'll need to paint with. On the left, you've got
some really cheap brushes, I don't know where I got them, $2 shop [LAUGHTER] cheap
shop they're to use with the masking fluid and they're going to get ruined so
don't spend money on these. Next brushes along
those full brushes, are the ones I used full
painting with paints, they are better quality. I normally go for
artist quality brands, but it's not too important. You can get cheap
ones if you prefer, you just want to get something
that makes a nice point. If I was to only buy one brush to use for this whole painting, I would choose the
smaller mop brush. It makes a really nice point, but it can fit a lot
of water in it so you don't need quite as many
brushes as I've used. Just try to find at least one that makes a good point
and can hold water. I also used a kitchen sponge. That was again [LAUGHTER]
about a $1 at a supermarket. I think they're called cellular sponges they're a
bit firm and they've got different sized
bubbles in them. On the right we've
got to water vessels, I like to use two, one for dirty and
one for clean water, that way I can spend a whole painting
session two or three hours without having
to change my water. Whereas if I just have one, I would have to change
it more quickly. We've also got some
masking fluid, which I'll explain
more about later, but it is painted on and used to block out areas where you don't
want the paint to go. I'm not aware of the
brand being particularly important with masking fluid I think they're all pretty good. Grab that if you
can, if you can't, I will show an alternative
method with the masking tape. Then I've just got an
eye-dropper that's optional. You can use it to put
clean water in your [inaudible] and also a spray bottle that's
again optional, but it helps to keep
your paints wet, if they're looking like
they're going to dry out. First of all this
is a hair-dryer, it's just a mini hair-dryer
from a department shop. You don't need one, but it's helpful because it way speeds up
your drying time. Sometimes with
water-color paints, it can take 20 minutes for your area to dry before
you can do the next layer. If you have a hair-dryer, it can take maybe two minutes. If you have one lying around and any
hair-dryer will work, you might find that
that's helpful too. Two more things to mention, so I use the pair of scissors
to cut the masking tape and the white gel pen is for some optional refining of the stars and rain
right at the end. [MUSIC]
4. Techniques Part 1: Now I'm moving on to my
techniques demonstration. I'll be breaking
down all the skills you need to paint
a final picture. Once you've completed
the exercise you'll be capable of
completing the first picture. Definitely get out the materials
and paint along with me. Copy my brush strikes. Go ahead and draw out some boxes like
this on your paper, I'll post more on the guide. The colors here
are not important since I'll be showing
you color mixing later. Just make sure that you
have at least three. The ones I have are
ultramarine blue, lemon rose, lemon yellow,
viridian, and [inaudible]. The viridian is acting as
a stand-in for the greens. We're going to mix later
so if you don't have that, that's fine, you can just
use this blue instead. The techniques we'll be covering are using masking fluid, using masking tape, painting a variegated wash, painting a graded wash, blurring the edges
of a painted area, painting with a sponge, dry brushing technique,
and lifting. If you don't know
what those mean, that's fine, we're going
to go through it together. I taped the corners of my paper to make sure
that it doesn't move. To get started I'm going to draw a tree in both
of these sections, the masking fluid and the
masking tape section. Let us do one with a bit of point and this coming off it. We want it to be similar to one of the ones
that I have in my drawing so that I can
demonstrate to you how to do it. Then we got this one. It doesn't need to be perfect. I'll just draw a
similar one here. This is just the tip of the
tree, it's not a full tree. You'll just be picking one of these techniques to do
in your final painting. I'd recommend doing
the masking fluid one if you have it but if you don't, that's why I'll be teaching the masking tape
version as well. They both work fine. This is masking fluid. It's a liquid gum that dries on paper and when it dries
it will repel water. Then you paint around it and when that paint
is dry you rub it off and you've got
an area that white. Let's get started with this. Its got child proof work on it. Let's put it, where can
you see it? Over here. This brush I'm using it's
a really cheap one because the masking fluid gets into all of the brushes
and ruins them, so I don't need using
an expensive one. I'm just wetting
it a little bit, taking off some of the darkness and then we're
painting our fluid. Tap it off a little bit. It's really just like paint. I'm pushing so hard
at the bottom to get a wider stroke and
lifting as I move up. We're doing a painting for these little branches. You want to go as
quick as you can really with this fluid
because if some of it dries and then
you paint next to it the bristles of your brush can irritate what
you've already done. I think that's it. I'm just leaning my head to
the side, you can't see me. This is off the camera. But I'm leaning my head to
the side and that lets me see the right painting
of liquid and I can see where it's painted
because it's quite pale. There we go. That's
masking fluid. Now, second way,
use with the tape. It's a bit more complicated. First what you're going
to do is tear off the duct tape and the length
that you're drawing here is. Get some scissors. We're going to do one
branch at a time so there'll be four
pieces of paper. If you're feeling
particularly [inaudible] try to do it with one. First doing cut one side with trunk and then I'll
cut the other side. I'm wiggling my scissors a bit because I don't want it to
be a perfectly straight. It's a tree after
all and they're not made in a
factory. There we go. I got my first piece of tape and I'm going to put
it over the paper. Now I'm just getting a side
of my thumb and rubbing that. We need to make sure
edges attach down really well because otherwise the
paint will get under them. The next one, we cut
for this one now. This one's got a few
more shapes in it. I just want to make sure
I'm curving it and I'm doing quite obvious bends. Good to see this and I got it. Really it won't be the
same as your picture but it good guide for when
you're eyeballing it. It looks straight like that. [inaudible] this here
if you can see this. Now what I'm going to do, I'm going to make this
a bit thinner. Let's just make sure that
you've got one end of your branch slightly big
and it gets thinner. Then use the edge where you
can see this technique. It's just a little bit more
fiddly than the previous one. Very achievable way. Slide that on there. It's a bit
different though. No worries. It's fine. Once again, really rub
that into your paper. Do make sure that
you have washed your hands before
you start this, but you don't want to be rubbing your oils from your
skin onto the paper. But this one, now I do
I'm just having a look. I'll just go wherever
it cut earlier. [inaudible]. Pushing into the paper,
and what's wrong. This is a pretty standard shape, so just do a step and stick that on. Again bring in my
head to make sure that I push down every edge. I think that looks good. Now, we're going to
paint over both of these and just check
that this is dry. Not great. I'm going to leave it a second off-camera
and then come back. That's starting to look
a bit more transparent, which is [inaudible]
I think it's okay to start mixing my paint because
we're just practicing, it doesn't really matter
what color you choose. I just dip my brush into my clear water and
let's go pink. Pink is fine. Let's just do a little test. That's fine. It really
doesn't matter. At this stage, we're just playing, learning,
experimenting. You can paint this area. We'll do the same for
the masking tape one and you leave it to dry.
You can come back later. The next one is a variegated
wash. A variegated wash is an area where there's multiple colors all blending
into each other very neatly. No hard lines. We need some more
colors for that. We make some blue. We test, that's fine. Always rinse it up in the the water and then tap it dry on the paper just to make sure that it's all out and
then you're not diluting your next colors if
you're going straight into another color that
you already mixed. A little bit of yellow. This is the first technique
that we're going to use to paint the sky. I've got three colors, again if you're using
different colors, no worries. We're just learning techniques. Put my paintbrush
in the clean water. I'm going to paint,
the area where I want this variegated wash to go. I'm going to just
pause for a moment, you can blow it if you want. Just tapping it with a slightly dryer brush because I don't want
this to be soaking wet, I just want a very
fine layer of water. That looks okay to me. I'm going to start
picking out some blue, tapping that into the top and dragging it down a little bit. Now, I'm lifting my brush. I'm just picking that up. Quickly washing my brush. Picking out my next color
and I'm going to put it right on the edge of
where this blue was. Drag it down a little bit, tap it off and then
I actually drag it a bit higher into the blue. Drag it down again. Wash it off again, dry it. Last color and
then as last time, just tapping on the
edge of the pink walls. Drying it off and then
I'm going to stop. The thing about watercolors is that when you're
painting like this, this is called wet-on-wet
where you painted water on the paper and then we would put the
painting on top of that. That's called wet-in-wet. The wonderful thing
about that is, when you do this, the
paint mixes itself. During review, we have to
worry too much at all. You can actually scrub your paper and get
some nice effects. You can play with it too much. I'm just going to waive that. If I was painting on
a much biggest scale, I would probably spend a little bit more time
dragging down, up, down, up to blend each of
the colors a bit more. That's okay for now. [inaudible] .
5. Techniques Part 2: [MUSIC] The next one
is a graded wash. Now, in the demonstration, notice that I do this
technique first. Then I decided that my
sky wasn't darkened, so I did a graded wash. A graded wash is just
when you go from one stronger color to a
diluted version of that, or to nothing but water. I should do that. Same idea. Clean water on the whole area. Not too much, but you don't want
it dry either. You dry up the brush, grab some blue and
start placing it. Now, in this one, I won't
drag it down a bit. But instead of going
to a new color, I'm just dipping it in the
water, but not all of it. I don't want all of my color to come
out just a little bit, you'll notice that the color coming out of my brush
is a lot weaker now. Again, I'll probably wash it
off completely this time, and then I'll go in again. I'm just considering whether I want to mess with
that anymore or not. I know I'm not. I'm
just [inaudible] nice gradient and again,
you leave it. [LAUGHTER] You don't want
to be messing around with half drunk [inaudible]
funny effects in the paper. If you have almost dry
paint next to wet paint, it'll cause what's
called [inaudible]. That's fun to do on
purpose sometimes, but in situation like this is not what we are aiming
for so I'm quite happy with that graded wash.
Blurred edge technique. This is what we'll be using for the trees that are furthest
away in the painting. When we paint things
in the distance, we want to make sure that we blur it because
same with our eyes, we can't really focus on things
that are really far away. They get blurry and we're
going to emulate that. Just to get some
water on my brush like some gradient type,
we should mix them. My gradient tube was
a little bit dry, so it's taking a bit
more encouragement for it to dissolve
into that well. I want a much stronger color so that you can really
see what I'm doing. What about that?
Yeah, that's okay. We're not painting any water. No water on the page.
Straight paint, a bit similar to what we'll
be doing with painting. Let's pretend that it is some
trees in the background. Wash off your paint. A little on the tissue,
you want to almost completely dry it,
but not quite. You just do want a little
bit of water in your brush, and then go across
the top [inaudible]. Wash it up again and this time, you want it dry,
we're going to dry. One more. This time
you're trying to pull the paint of the paper in the
area where your brush is. Some of that paint
is now in the brush. I'll wash that up.
That's that technique. Again, you don't really want
to play with it too much. But what I like is you've got
somewhat of an edge here, but you've also got a bit of the color coming out this way. That's how we know that something is in the
distance because it's blurry. Things that are in
the foreground will be sharper which you'll see in following demonstrations. The next one is pretty firm. We're going to paint
with the sponge. This is the technique. I think I invented it, but there's probably other
artists that do it as well. This is sponge painting, I'm going to mix up
more than that because the sponge just sucks up
[LAUGHTER] all of your paint. Better get all of the paint. Let's draw a branch. This branch has all of
this big leaves around it. If you can't quite see what
I'm doing, don't worry, I'm just drawing the log
with my pencil [LAUGHTER]. Now I don't need the
brush, I need the sponge. Sorry about the jump part, I just have to
restart my camera, but this is the
sponge we're using. It's just a kitchen sponge
and I've ripped it, so that it has some
interesting edges on it. We had started. With this branch
that I've drawn, I'm going to decide where
the light's coming from, because that's going to
affect the way we paint, so let's decide that the light's coming
from this direction. [NOISE] We're going to
do this in a few layers. For the first layer,
it's got some paint on the sponge and very much
dabbing up and down. I'm going to shift
it in my hands for the different parts of this sponge while making
contact with paper, that's going to
vary the texture. I'm just filling the area but be careful not
to do it too well, because I want it to
look like a shape that's made out of lots
of little parts. There we go. There's Step 1. I'm going to rinse. Actually, I don't need to do that, do I? Because I'm going to
stop to do the same. [LAUGHTER] But it's the
same, but never mind. I'm going to let that dry. I'll see you in a
moment when it's dry. I just put the hairdryer
on that for 20 seconds, not very long
[inaudible] your ears. From that, especially
for our headphone users. Then next, I'm going to go in, I'm just going to
get a little bit more of the paint in here. Just want a little bit darker
than we had it before. I need to remove this
to paint on my brush [LAUGHTER] and then
same, dip it in. This is where we're
thinking about the light. If the light's
coming from above, there's going to
be a shadow below. Normally, the shadow gets
darker as it goes down. This is our mid toning. I'm going to start
halfway down this shape, maybe a little bit
less than halfway. I'm just going to do
second go over of this part and it's looking a bit too clean so let
me just do that. It makes it look a
bit more interesting. Again, we're going
to let it dry. This gets a bit [LAUGHTER]
repetitive. One moment. Again, that was only about 20 seconds with the hairdryer. It might take a minute also, if you don't have a
hairdryer, either is fine. Same color again. In the actual demonstration
of the painting, we're going to vary our
colors a little bit. I have a bit more
blue in the shadow, is going to be more yellow in the light but that is for later. Right now, we're just
trying to understand one, how to apply the color
with the sponge and two, how to use where we apply
the color to show it form. We've done our light area. Over all of that, we've done our medium area and
then for the third go, we really just want to
get right at the bottom. We're going to be boring. Do some bits like
that. That's all. Now that we have the three different intensities of color, I think you can really
clearly imagine that this is a 3D shape that has
light coming onto it. Don't worry about
the trunk either. In the finished painting
we'll be mixing masking techniques with our sponge so we can rub off whatever
masking technique we've used and have a nice
clean pale bright shape. [MUSIC]
6. Techniques Part 3: Let's move on to dry brushing. Now, we were wet-in-wet earlier, that was up here, which is
where we painted water, and then we painted paint. Dry brushing is
basically the opposite. Dry brushing is when the
paper is as dry as possible, and we're going straight on top of it with
quite a thick paint. We're not really going to
water it down very much, and the point of that
is to show texture. I'm using a paper
with a slight tuck to it and this technique
will really show that. I'm going to go into
my burnt sienna. Just a tiny bit of dampness
from the water. Not a lot. We just want the bristles
of the brush to be pliable. I'm dabbing it straight
into my raw sienna. No mixing at all. We'll just do a few
test stroke, shall we? I'm just testing
thin on the paper, light pressure, and
then lifting that up. Give it a few goes. I'm just going to get a
little bit more paint because that's too wet. That's not what I want. There we go, that's what I want. See how I'm not fully
touching the brush down hard into the
paper I'm just swiping it across the top, which gives us this
really fun texture. [inaudible]. I've got water up here
in the top of my brush. It's flowing down and
that's why I'm getting these two timed areas where it's got a texture on this side as it moves
on the other side. That's quite fun, but not actually what
I want right now. I've dried that off completely, back again into my paint. That's what l'm after. You can see where there's
lots of paint it's a denser shape and then when
the paint's running out, it's much more subtle. Just so you can visualize
why we're letting these [inaudible] I'm going
to draw a tree brush. The trees that
we're painting was the mountain ash and that's the Australian mountain
ash not the American ones. I have this dark bark
that peels off in layers. I'm looking at them
right now out my window. The beige gray color
underneath it marshaled in it, it varies between colors. That's why the dry brush
technique is really good because we can start with
a really dark the way the bark is thick and
then we can lift and do the latte texture for
when it's mostly peeled off. We'll start at the bottom. I'm pressing down hard
because I want it to be dense there and then
I lift as I go up. I can do a few. Once again, push down, lift. I want a tiny bit
more water in this because I don't have a great
deal of control, right now. There we go. It's just a
fraction more water on my brush. One more, push down, lift. It's not on these trees, it's not all concentrated
at the bottom you have areas all the way up the
tree, that have this bark. Is normally less on top, it peels off, from the top-down. But you'll have periods up the tree where there's
the dark part again, pushing, lifting and that was a bit hash of
movement do you see? It's gone straight from being a dense color
to almost nothing. I'm going to go over that, have a bit more delicacy this time and then you can see
that's a better transition. I'll just bring that
down this way as well. This brush might actually
be a little bit soft. It's a very delicate bristle. If you're having
trouble controlling it, see if you have a dark brush. See if you have a brush
that has thicker bristles. One more. There we go. Then I'm just going to loop to make it a bit
more interesting. There we go. That's the
thing we're going to be doing to get some texture
and paint our bark. Our last technique is lifting. Lifting is when we paint in an area and then we remove
some of that paint, especially after it's dried. Let's go for a pinky color. This is what we're
going to be using for the moon and stars here. That's a nice subtle color not too subtle it's hot pink but fair bit of water in that. This is not the only technique we're going to use
for moon and stars, we're going to use
masking fluid, for the majority of the moon and stars and then use the lifting to make a halo of white around the moon and stars. By lifting that
color just subtly, it helps the moon and stars look like they are
glowing, which is great. I'm just going to let that dry. I'll be right with
you. There we go. My pink is all dry to the touch, dry to the appearance. What we're going to do is use a brush to scrub away
some of this water down. Now I know that these brush is definitely too soft for this. I'm going to put that
down reach for this one. This one is little bit stiffer. Can you see how the
bristles bounce a bit, whereas this one
are more pliable. You'll be able to feel
it with your fingers. Have a go with the
brushes that you own. Also, this one has good point, which helps it be a bit stiffer. I believe this brush
once belonged to my great-great aunt one of the first brushes I
ever got, that I inherited. I've got some water on this brush and I'm just
going to go in circle. I'm pushing quite hard. We do that for a bit, and I'm going to take my tissue. You might want a
clean tissue vest ideally and put that away. Can you see already,
it's lighter. I'm just going to have a few
goes with that so I'll get my brush in the clean water again to make sure all
the pink has come off of it and scrub. Don't use one of your new favorite brushes
on these stickers, it won't have a point anymore, if you brush too often. There we go, tap it again. I'll probably do
that three times. So one more, wash it, and scrub. This is a very subtle technique, did I just dip
that in the green? I think I did. The
green coming out. This is a very subtle technique. It's not going to be dramatic, but I think that's what's
beautiful about it. You only need a little bit. The one last time, [inaudible] that off and then I'm just checking
in the camera. Yes, you can see but
it's a bit lighter. Combine that with the
masking fluid technique, and you're going to get a
clear shape that then grows. So that's what
you're after that. I have remembered, I'm
going to show you, since we did that tree there, I'm going to actually
do another one. This is a grade and
wash technique. I'm just going to put a line
down that to remind you. For the trays, this is
going to be two steps. This is step 2. Step 1, it's exactly the
same as we did here, but on a much smaller scale. So I thought I'll just
demonstrate that to you now, so that you can
watch it anytime. I've got quite a small
brush, what size is it? A zero, and I'm
painting [inaudible]. I'm just going to wait until some of
that shine comes off of it. If this is full of water, sorry, if this is really wet, it will blend more than you wanted to and will get
us back to the drawing. I'll dip, wet my brush. This is dried out
a bit. Here we go. Wet my brush, remember
it's exactly the same but because it's now off, it's a bit more fiddly. I'm just going to
run along edge. Not just as much as
I expected it to. That's good, clean the brush. This is also similar to the
blurred edge technique, except that we've started
on a wet background. There we go again, up and down. Maybe show that the edge
of my brush touches that colored part and there
we go, absolutely. That's just going
to cause a shadow. When we're doing the
tree, we'll do this on the layer to show that
the tree is a cylinder, to show the form with the light, and then this layer on
top to show the bark. You'll be able to
watch me do it later, but I thought that might help because the painting
demonstration is sped up. There we go. Lastly, let's see if our masking worked. You can use an eraser for this. I have a habit of just
using the side of my thumb. Again, make sure it's clean. Grad, back and forth,
and there we go. That is a good starting
point for our tree. Let's see, if number
2 worked as well. So far so good [inaudible] hopefully. I just erase [inaudible]. I would use a harder
eraser that line, I don't know where.
So there you go. There's two different methods, this one is a bit sharper, but it also looks a
bit less organic. This one, the edges are a bit softer compared to this one. But as you can see, it's possible to do
things like accidentally make these teeth a little
bit bigger than I meant it. So choose whichever
technique you would like. It's really up to you. Of course for the demonstration, we're going to go back
into this area with a little brush and paint in those trucks with
this technique experience too. There we go. All finished. I hope you followed
along with me, and if you haven't,
please do give this a go. These techniques are
really the basis of all watercolor paintings. If you can follow along and
master these techniques, you have taken such a big step into
mastering watercolors. Thanks for following along, and I'll see you
in the next class.
7. Discussion of Reference Picture: [MUSIC] In this video, we're going to discuss
reference photos. You'll see that
up on the screen, I have my reference photo on the left and the drawing
I did on the right. They're quite different and I'm going to explain
to you why this is. This is a photo I took myself
on one of my evening walks. It's good to use your own photos for painting when possible, because that means that
you are in the copyright. You can get in trouble later if you take a photo
off the Internet, and you share it later
or you want to sell it, you might not actually
be allowed to do that. There are ways of getting
royalty-free reference images, such as a website
called Pixabay, and you can sell that or do
whatever you like with that. In this class, I'm just going to circumvent that whole issue by using a photo that
I have the right to. Now, there are a couple of
ways of using reference. One way is to find a
photo that is perfect, you love everything about it, and try to copy that exactly. The other way is to take a photo the way you like
some of the elements, so you can tell there's
some good stuff going on. But maybe it's not perfect, and in that case you can
take your inspiration from the photo without
copying it directly. With a bit of knowledge
about composition, you'll often find
that you can design a better image than one
that is in a photo. Add to that the fact that, a camera doesn't actually necessarily capture
exactly what's there. For example, in this
photo that we're using, it's not quite how
it was in real life. The sky was more
colorful and brighter, and the trees were
not so dark either. When you're painting
from a photo, you're copying a copy
of the real thing, and if what is in your brain
is better, you can do that. The things that I liked
about this photo, I'll draw them on the screen, I liked this shape of trees with the trunks
at the bottom, and you can see it's
actually a couple of different shapes, this area is further back. I also liked this
tree on the left, this one on the right, and also there's quite
a good shape in here. There we go. I've
made a big mess. I'll take just the
bits that I like from this photo and then I
translate them to here. Where you can see
I've got my trees, this tree shape and you can see much clearer this shape that I liked from
the original image. I also wanted to put
in a focal point, which is this stars and moon. When I was placing that, I was thinking about
the rule of thirds. If you don't know the rule
of thirds, it's sweet. Imagine that there
are lines dividing horizontally and
vertically our image. I'll just drag those across,
it's approximately thirds. What looks really good
in a composition is, when you have your
focal point on one of these points
where the lines meet, which you can't see
it very well anymore. That's where our star and moon is and that's
why I put it there. You may also notice me
talking about avoiding symmetry when we go on
to the drawing video. Just to be clear,
you don't need to be doing a drawing
while I'm talking, you can follow along with
me in the next lesson. But, when I'm talking
about avoiding symmetry, why am I saying that? Well, if you're creating
an image that is purposely symmetrical and
it's identical either side, that can be quite striking. However, in this image, this is nature, this is trees. I want it to look wild and
free and no tree is the same, so I'm being quite careful
not to draw them the same. The reason I say
be careful not to, is because our brains
love creating symmetry, and your brain will
probably try to do it even if you're not consciously
trying to create symmetry. Keep that in mind,
watch yourself, and make sure you're
not doing something like this and having
it like that, because it just won't
look quite right. As I said, if you're doing
symmetry on purpose, then absolutely
try to mirror it. If you're not trying
to do symmetry, then you want each
side to be different, and remember that
this is just a guide. Notice that I haven't put
in all of these leaves, but you can come in later. They'll be some more
branches later too. But honestly, we don't need
to worry about that now. We're just giving ourselves
a starting point. Gather your materials
and in the next class, we're going to do a
drawing together[MUSIC]
8. Drawing: [MUSIC] The first thing I always do before starting a painting is going
to wash my hands. The reason being for that is, we all have natural
oils in our skin, particularly on our fingertips. If it gets onto the paper, the paper will actually
start to repel water and you will get marks
once you start to paint, and you won't be able
to get them off ever. If you haven't done it already, pause the video, wash
your hands and come back. I'm starting off with
an A5 piece of paper, which in imperial measurements
is about 6 by 8 inches. I'm using a ruler to make
a border around the edge, which is five millimeters
or a quarter of an inch. If I were to use a
large piece of paper, I would do one centimeter
or half an inch. This border is important
because later I'm going to use it as a guideline to
tape the edges of my paper. Taping the edges of the paper
means that when I start adding lots of water,
it won't buckle. I'm starting to draw my
first tray and I'm making a mark at the top and
the bottom of the page, where I want my lines
to start an end. Then using a fairly light
grip on the pencil, I am joining them
in a slight curve. I'm allowing my line
to be a little bit wavy because trees
grow naturally, they didn't have
straight lines in them. I do the same for my
second tree, again, being careful not to make it
too straight or symmetrical. I am starting to draw the tree branches now
and I'm not copying it exactly from the
photo because I don't really like the
composition of the photo, I'm just taking certain
branches as inspiration and then putting them on my picture where I think
it will look good. I'm making sure that all of
my trunks and branches start thicker at the
bottom or the base and get thinner as
they taper off. I'm using the placement
of my branches to make an interesting shape
in the middle of the painting where the sky
will shine through later. I'm not drawing every branch that I see in the
reference photo, I'm simplifying what I see for the sake
of the artwork and just drawing the ones that I think are important
to the composition. I erased that branch that I was just
drawing and redid it a little bit higher up because it was too close to the one on the other side of the
branch, too much symmetry. I start drawing my
midground trees by drawing the line between the
foliage and the trunks, and then I go up the top and I draw the tops of the trees. I try not to do like a circular shape or anything like that because
that's quite boring. We want to try to do lots
of ins and outs and ups and downs to make a unique shape that is interesting
to the viewer. I draw the shape for the trees on the right side
of the painting, and then I draw a
line between them, which is the tops of some
even further distant trees. For the smaller tree trunks, I'm being careful to
make them random. Sometimes we'll
have a bunch right next to each other
and sometimes one by itself and sometimes it'll just be a single trunk and sometimes
there will be a split. Again, I'm just trying to make
this as random as possible because that's more interesting than if it always
looked uniform. Here I realized
that I hadn't added in the bottom edge of the
tree shape on the right, so I quickly drew that in and I continued
drawing the trunks. I decided to add a
moon and stars in the upper left area of this sky shape that we've
made, surrounded by trees. This wasn't in my
original photo, notice it come from real life. I decided to edit because
I felt that it added a fairy tale whimsical
element to the painting and it also will be a focal point for the viewers' eyes to rest. I go over the moon shape a few times before committing
to the final line, just to make sure that
it's nice and rounded. For the stars, I draw two lines, a bit like a plus symbol, and then I use that it as a guide to draw the
edges of the stars. I have a look at my
whole composition to decide if I like it and I make the decision to
raise the line of the distant trees and
I erase the old one. Here's the finished drawing, I encourage you to do one yourself and if
you'd like feedback, you can post it in
the project gallery. If you don't enjoy drawing or if you just want
to get started, I will post a scan
of my drawing in the resources and you can trace that onto your
watercolor paper.
9. Taping and Masking: [MUSIC] I'm taping around the edges of my paper following the lines
that I drew earlier. I'm running my finger
along the edge of the tape to make
sure it's sealed. Now, water won't be able to
get under it when we paint, I take the little brush
and start painting masking fluid onto the
smaller tree trunks. I go left to right as I'm right-handed and I don't
want to smudge my work. I paint the moon and stars, trying to be as
precise as possible. I swap to the larger brush and move on to the
larger tree trunks. Here a drop of masking fluid got onto the paper by accident. If this happens, just
let it dry and rub it off with your finger
before you start to paint. Once all the masking
fluid is applied, let it dry thoroughly before
moving on to the next step, it will go from opaque
to slightly transparent. [MUSIC]
10. Mixing Sky Colours: [MUSIC] I squeeze out a dab of each paint into a
well from right to left, my colors are permanent rose, French ultramarine blue, permanent lemon
yellow, raw sienna, burnt sienna, and cerulean blue. To mix the sky colors, I start by using an
eye dropper to put some water into three
individual wells. The first color I mix
uses only permanent rose. The second color I mix
uses permanent rose and French Ultramarine to
make a bluish purple color. Then I mix lemon yellow
and raw sienna to make a bright but natural
looking yellow color. If I use lemon yellow alone, the color would be a bit
too fluorescent for a sky. I've used a test paper to make sure all of the colors
are to my taste, the purple color should be the darkest color and the yellow one should
be the lightest. If you make any color too dark, you can lighten it again
by adding more water. [MUSIC]
11. Painting the Sky: Using the large mop brush, I paint clear water
onto the entire page. I go back and forth
horizontally and vertically to make sure that
I haven't missed any spots. If water is pooling anywhere, which can happen
around the edges and near the masking fluid, I dry my brush on a bit
of the tissue and then touch it to the paper
gently to lift the excess. Let the water sink in a
bit before painting on it. If you put your head
down close to the paper, you'll see the paper go
from reflecting light quite a lot to being
just a little bit shiny. I switch to the
smaller mop brush though you could use either
of these for this phase. Starting off with the yellow, I paint in horizontal strokes up to about a third
of the paper. I use lots of paint
down the bottom and add water at the top
to let it fade away. [MUSIC] I clean my brush and
dry it on the tissue. Now taking the pink, I start in the very
middle of the page. Then again using
horizontal strokes, blend it up and down so it fills the middle
third of the page. [MUSIC] Here, I decide to add a
little bit more yellow at the
bottom of the page. Finally, I add purple
to the top of the page. I alternate between
pink and purple paints, always cleaning my
brush in-between, adding in the color
and blending. [MUSIC] The purple is pulling
a bit at the top, so I use a dry
brush to absorb it. Then I say that
all of the colors are pulling down the
middle of the page. This means that the paper is buckling from all of the water. Sometimes this is just bad luck, but I might've been able
to prevent it by letting the paper dry a minute longer
before applying the paint. I can't fix it though. I use my dry brush to
absorb what I can, being careful not to
remove too much color. Then I let the page
dry completely. Now I see that my colors
have faded as they dried. This is not uncommon
with watercolor. Another layer will
fix it up nicely, as well as smoothing out any imperfections from
the previous layer. Starting from a dry
page this time, I add purple to the top
dipping my brush in water as I go down to blend it all the way to the
bottom of the page. This is a graded wash technique. [MUSIC] I add pink into the
middle of the page [MUSIC] and a bit more purple at the top. The yellow is strong
enough already, so, I don't need to add anymore. Let the page dry completely before going on
to the next step. [MUSIC].
12. Painting Far Distant Trees: I need to mix a green to paint the far
distant trees with. I put a bit of the purple
I already mixed into the yellow color and test it
to see what it looks like. It's far too pale. Using French
ultramarine, raw sienna, and a little bit
of lemon yellow, I keep adding paint
into the well until I get a color and
intensity that I like. We're aiming for a
deep bluish-green. [MUSIC] I start painting this color and along the
bottom of the page, going almost to the
line that I have designated as my
far distant trees. Adding a little bit
of water to my brush, I drag it along the
edge of the paint line, a little bit more water, and this time I go right up
to the line that I've drawn. A bit more paint at the bottom
to strengthen the color. I thoroughly wash
and dry my brush. I drag the dry brush along
the edge of my paint line. When it dries, there
will be a blur between where the paint is
and the rest of the sky. This will show that these trees
are the furthest distant. Let the paper dry completely and then move on
to the next step. [MUSIC]
13. Painting Midground Trees: I need to mix three green
colors for my trace. A lighter one that leans
more towards yellow, a midterm one, and a deeper one. I use the eyedropper to add
water to two more wells. My lightest color,
which is on the left, is made of raw
sienna and cerulean, just a little bit of each. In hindsight, I could have
added a little bit of lemon yellow to make
it that bit brighter. My middle green is also
made of raw sienna and cerulean in slightly
stronger concentrations. For my dark, I start with the color that's
already in the well. I add ultramarine, raw
sienna and a little bit of burnt sienna to make it
darker, less vibrant green. [MUSIC] Taking the kitchen sponge, I rip pieces off until I
get a piece that I like. It needs to be big enough that I can hold it comfortably in my hand and have an interesting
edge not to straight. I wet it a little bit in
my water and then squeeze it out before picking up
my lightest pink color. I use tapping motions to apply
the paint onto the paper. I fill in the entire shapes
that I drew earlier, making sure to be a bit
messy around the edges. [MUSIC] I let this dry. Using my medium green now, I fill in the shapes again. I paint quite solidly in most of the shape that you use a
lighter touch near the tops. This creates interesting
outline that mimics the look of leaves and allows the sky and the previous layer
to show through. Once again, I allow this to dry. Using the darkest color now, I paint only the lower
part of the trees, which would be in shadow. I dip my sponge into the water to get a slightly diluted color. And then I apply it to the paper further up the tree shape, making sure to
leave lots of gaps. Let this dry completely. Now I want to highlight the 3D shape of some of
the individual trees. I take my median
green color and paint the shadow side of
some specific trees. I keep in mind that the
light is coming through the trees towards the bottom
right of the picture. For my trees that are on the
left side of the picture, the shadow will also
be on the left. Then I take my darkest color and deepen the shadows
at the bottom. I repeat this on the trees on the right side
of the picture. Dry this area completely. Starting with a little bit
of water in a new well, I add some of my dark
green color plus some burnt sienna to make
a warm dark shadow color. I apply this at the bottom in the area with
the tree trunks. Once again, using my
small wall brush. Let your page dry.
14. More Foliage: [MUSIC] The process for the tree leaves in
the foreground of the picture is the same
as what we've just done. Starting once again with
the lightest color, I apply it around the
tree branches in clumps. [MUSIC] Dry the page before continuing. Using the medium green, I paint the same
areas as I just did, making sure to be darker at the bottom and patch hear
at the top of each clump. Dry the page again. Feeling that the previous layer was a little bit too pale, I've gone in again
with the medium tone. [MUSIC] Let dry. Now, with the darkest color, I'm only focusing at the very bottom of the clumps of leaves
that I've painted. [MUSIC] Looking at my work, I realized that
the leaves I just painted are a bit too
blue for my liking. I take lemon yellow
and add it to my lightest color well
making quite a bright color. Then I paint that over
everywhere I just did. [MUSIC] Let your page dry before
for the next step. I take that same yellow color and edit to the lighter areas
of my mid ground trees. The shape is looking
a bit round to me, so I make sure to go
out of the lines a bit and put in some
irregularities in that shape. [MUSIC] I Let that dry then I take
the mid tone green and reinforce the
area that I just did. [MUSIC] While I've got
the color on my brush, I edit where I see fit still trying to highlight the
3D shape of the trees. [MUSIC] Then with
my darkest green, I'm deepening all of
the darkest shadows. [MUSIC] There's a spot where my dark
color has got into the sky, so I wet it with a damp paintbrush and then
dab it away with a tissue. Now, it's time to remove the masking fluid
on the tree trunks. Make sure your paper is
completely dry before you begin. I rub the side of my thumb
against the paper in short back-and-forth motions to pull off the masking fluid. If you've used masking
tape for this spot, use your fingernails or
tweezers to pull off the tape. [MUSIC] Leave the masking fluid on the moon and the
stars for the moment. In the way I've used previously
to make a brown a color, I add burnt sienna, raw sienna, and French Ultramarine to
make a dull brown color. I paint this over the area where my mid-ground
tree trunks are. [MUSIC].
15. Foreground Tree Trunks: Adding water to the same well, I mixed a brown in previously. I mixed a very light brown by adding tiny bits of raw sienna, burnt sienna, and
French Ultramarine. In the next well over, I add water and then raw sienna and French Ultramarine again
to make a darker brown. I take the lighter
brown color and my tiny paint brush and paint it all over the tree
trunk to the left. While this is still wet, I take the darker
color and add it on the left side
of the tree trunk. The water will blend
the two colors together to make a gradient. The effect is subtle, but you'll be able to
see it better when we do the larger tree
trunk on the right. I follow the same steps to
paint the second tree trunk. In a new well, I add just
a little bit of water, quite a lot of
burnt sienna paint, and a little bit of ultramarine to make a thick dark brown. I apply this color to my paper using the dry
brushing technique, imitating the shapes I see in
the reference picture where the darker bark is peeling off to show the lighter
bark underneath. For the tree trunk on the right, I switched to a slightly
larger flat brush. This helps me cover more of
the paper in one stroke, but it's the same technique. Whenever I put
paint on my brush, I make sure to test it first on the paper to make sure
that it's not too watery. The interesting texture
comes from there being not quite enough paint
on the brush to fill all the ridges
in the paper. I switch back to
the tiny brush to paint the bark on the
really thin branches. I make a lighter version of the dark brown by adding water to a new well and then adding just a little bit of the
brown paint into it. I paint this onto the
tree trunks to function as a median tone bark color. I'm careful to leave
some places where the lightest spot color
can show through. Taking the darkest brown color again and my tiny paintbrush, I paint in smaller branches coming off the larger ones
we've already painted. Now that the tree
trunks are done, we want to paint some
tree leaves that are showing in front of
the tree trunks. Taking the lightest green
color on the sponge, I dub it onto the
paper in front of the tree trunks in areas where I had already painted foliage. I repeat this with both of
the darker green colors, but I use a bit less of each color because I
don't want to overdo it. Again, I decide to brighten
up the painting by putting the brightest yellow color
in a few different places. That's it for the trees. Next we'll be working
on the moon and stars.
16. Moon and Stars: [MUSIC] I want my moon and stars to reflect light the same way that a real
moon and stars would. For that, I use a
technique called lifting. I wet the paintbrush
with clear water, and then paint little
circles around the moon, pressing down onto the
paper with my paintbrush. Then I use a clean tissue
to dab away the water, which will take any pigment with it that has been released. The first brush I chose
wasn't quite doing the trick because its
bristles are very soft. I switched to the small
flat brush which has harder bristles and shorter ones so that I can press it into
the paper more firmly. I continue until I see a
pale halo around the moon. Then I do the same thing
with both of the stars. [MUSIC] After this has dried, I use my thumb to remove
the masking fluid. I use an eraser to make doubly sure that all of
the fluid is gone. In a new well, I mix
a pale mixture with ultramarine blue and just a
tiny bit of burnt sienna. I paint this onto the
moon in circular motions, thinking about the shapes that creators would make
on the surface. The points on the
moon and the stars are not quite as detailed
as I would like. I had thought this might happen. My masking fluid is a bit
old and as it gets older, it gets thicker and it's
harder to paint details. I decide to fix this
using a white gel pen and I go over the edges of
the star and moon shapes. [MUSIC] Then I take my tiny brush with
just a little bit of water in it and blend out the gel pen so that it's not so harsh. I go back and forth
with the gel pen and paintbrush until I'm
satisfied with how it looks. Now that I've got
the gel pen out, I decided it would
be nice to add smaller stars around the
top of the painting. I draw them in making sure
to scatter them randomly. I don't want this to
look like polka dots. I think they finish off
the painting nicely. [MUSIC].
17. Final Touches: [MUSIC] Congratulations on
finishing your painting. Now it's time for my
absolute favorite part which is taking the tape off. When you take the tape off, you get these really crisp edges and it really lets
your painting shine. When you do this,
make sure to pull the tape back away from itself rather than up from the table because if you pull
it directly up, it can rip the paper. If you think your paper is
still at risk of ripping, you can heat up the tape
first with your hair dryer. This will melt the glue and the tape should
come off easily. [MUSIC] Now it's time to sign your work. I'm not sure exactly
how I'm going to frame mine, so for the moment. I'm just going to sign it
with a pencil in the margin. I like to write my full
name as my signature because my initials
are not too unique, and I want people who see the painting to be able to find me online if they want to. That is the last step. Congratulations on finishing
this watercolor painting. [MUSIC]
18. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] A huge well done to everyone who
has got this far. If you haven't done so yet, now is the time to
get your paints out and have a go yourself. For those who have
completed their painting, congratulations. I can't wait to see your work. Make sure to scan it or take
a photo and "Upload" it to the project gallery along
with any questions or comments about your
painting experience. I'm looking forward to
discussing all things with you. Feel free to also make
requests for future classes. Is there anything specific
you'd like to learn next? If you follow me
on this platform, you'll be able to get notified when new classes are available. I would also love it
if you could leave me a review of this class and recommend it to other
students if you found it helpful or interesting. That's all for now, thank
you so much for joining me and I hope to see you
again in future courses. Bye. [MUSIC]
Caitlin Hope Brown, Artist
