Paint a Watercolor Mimosa: Easy Flower for Beginners.

1. Paint a Mimosa: Is this Class for You?: I'm Elisabetta Italian watercolor artist and welcoming you to my new class. In this class, we will learn how to paint a very beginner friendly mimosa flower. I always found flowers very daunting until I understood that you can simplify the process using some unusual tools and breaking down the process in small baby steps. I will take you through the process step by step. And even if you find flowers daunting, you will paint beautiful mimosa flowers with no difficulty. Just follow me step by step, and you will learn plenty of interesting watercolor techniques. This class, you will learn many useful watercolor techniques such as wetting wet background. You will learn how to desaturate greens so that you make them more natural, more organic. You can add interest with color variation. We'll see how, you will learn how to paint glass. You will learn how to use unusual tools that are around home to easily paint flowers, to make the process easier. I will teach you how to paint easy leaves and you will learn it, how to choose light source and add consistent shadows. And the most important thing is that you will learn how to add depth to your watercolor through layering, many layers. For this class, you will use some very simple basic supplies, and I will also take you through piece supplies. So, what are you waiting for? Grab your supplies and join me in the class. And 2. Your Project & Supplies Needed: Your project will be to paint a memos of flowers in watercolor or maybe you can paint a different flower like lilac or Hydrangs using the same technique that I will show you in the class. It's important to applaud the project in the project gallery so that I can give you a personalized feedback. I will now show you the supplies. Now I will show you the supplies for your project and they're quite basic, I always try to ask you to use supplies that are easy to find or that probably you already have at home. The first and most important piece of supply is watercolor paper. It's very important that you use watercolor paper. I must say watercolor and the weight must be 300 GSM. This one is 100% cotton. For this project, as we are going to use a lot of water, it's very good idea to have cotton paper, but if you don't have cotton paper, you can still follow the class won't be important. But if you have access to cotton paper, try with cotton paper and it will be easier. But the very important thing is that you make sure that you're using watercolor paper. Then we need for the sketch, pf pencil, I like to use HB because it's a feasible but soft and easily erasable, and a needed eraser to soften pencil lines. Then, of course, you will need the watercolor and I'm using a very basic watercolor set that I use for most of my classes with some very basic colors that I will explain you later. But you don't have to have exactly the colors that I'm suggesting. Really feel free to use the colors that you have. If you have student grade colors, it's okay. If you have artist grade, it's even better. But really, you can use any watercolor that you have at home. Then of course, you need brushes. I use this flat brush to add water to paper. This is a brush that I only use for water so that it is always clean. A large flat brush, but you can use also mop brush like this really use what you have. Then I have used but round brushes of different sizes. Also they must adapt to the size of the paper. Here, I'm using 18 by 24 centimeters paper, but use what you have. You can use larger paper or smaller paper if you like. But remember that you need to adapt the size of the brush to the size of the paper. I'm using a medium brush, a very large brush, and a finer brush, not a liner, just a smaller brush that I use with a light hand when I need to draw thin lines. Then you will need tips, Q tips you will use this tip as a stamp for petals. And a white gelpan because the white gelpan is useful to highlights. If you don't have a white gelpan, you can use white wash. Then you will use some kitchen paper to dry your brush. If you have a spray bottle where you filled with water, you can use it to revive your watercolor pants before you use them. Then of course, you need two jars of water like this, one for clean water and one to rinse dirty brushes. Keep them separate, so you will always have a stock of clean water. Cool will be using in this class, very basic colors that are usually found in any watercolor set. You don't have to use exactly the colors I am using, but you can take equivalent colors or colors that maybe you like better. I'm using three yellows, a cool light one like a lemon yellow, a medium yellow, like a cadmium yellow. Or a hansa yellow medium, and a woman, dark yellow, orange yellow like Indian yellow or Nugaboch. Then ultramarine blue, burn sienna and the cool green like silo green or emerald or viridian. And also optional, but very useful, you can use a hair dryer or a heating tool like this to speed up the drying process between layers. Now, as you see the supplies are very easy. Let's start with the project. I can't wait to see yours. 3. Pencil Sketch & Background: To Let's start with a very easy pencil sketch. I will place a vase here for a vase basically a glass vase. I place a rectangle with a curved bottom, same curve on top and on bottom like this. Then I will draw some lines for leaves and some lines for the flowers. The mimosa has these clusters of flowers like this. That's it here Ova. Then I suggest that you lighten up these lines, especially for the glass. We needed eraser. You can re for some lines if you think you need them, correct one because here, I have drawn several sketchy lines, but I need only one here, and here. That's it. For this sketch, this is okay and then we will start painting and the first thing that I need to do, I take a large flat brush that I only use for water so that it is always clean. And I will put down some water here where you see the leaves, some water, and here around the flowers like this, like so. Then while this sits for a moment, I take a large round brush like this one, and I will put some green for the background here for the green, I take some sap green, if you have it. So sub green, and I will tone it down with a touch of a little in crimson like so I will drop some color here and there. It's background greenery along these lines. You can vary the ratio of red and green so that you can also drop some pure sap green like so. Now you drop some yellow background, and it takes some cadmium yellow, any primary yellow that you have a medium yellow, some lemonyellow, and you drop here and there along these lines, some lemoyellow and some cadmium yellow. Like this, like so. You can use both, alternate the two so that there is some lovely variation. Then we'll also add some more pure sap green here in the background. Now we can start filling the glass and we'll let this dry. While this dry, we can start filling the glass. 4. Glass Vase First Layer: Okay. For the glass, I take a slightly smaller brush. I will mix some ultramarine blue. All of you have some ultramarine blue with a touch of Bnciena so that you create a gray here also, it's a good idea to wet completely the glass without touching these colors, of course. And I will draw the outer margins. You can also drop some blue here and there, and some bunsena leave some white. Here you can go slightly down and leave some white here like this, like so, and here too. Now you can introduce some yellow here as a reflection. Let's play with colors. Reinforce the outer edges here a line just suggests the back of the a glass vase and we let everything dry. Here, it's too wet so I take a dry brush and I will collect some of the excess water. It's called this technique is called thirsty brush because it's dry, we dry the brush, and we collect some of the excess water. And we let everything dry, go and grab some coffee. 5. Flowers First Layer: Now, to speed up the process, of course, you can use a heating tool or a hair dryer. And now we take a tip, our secret weapon, and we mix some yellow here, cadmium yellow or any primary yellow with our tip, we stamp dots along this line, you can go directly into the color. Just put some distance between them so that you can distinguish the dots. Downwards some of them, upwards is no good. Now you can take some of the lighter lemon yellow. Just wet. Spray the paint so that it will revive it, you revive it, and you go where you see some space between the darker dots. Lighter dots will go towards the right top because that's where our light source is. Oh Now we can take some Indian yellow, which is a warm, darker yellow. If you don't have it, you can mix a touch of red or a touch of orange in this yellow. But I have Indian yellow, so I just take it and it's a darker, warmer, orange yellow, and I will just dump it. This is the first layer. Okay. 6. Add Leaves and Water in the Vase: Then we take a very thin brush and we mix some sub green with some of our ultramarine blue so that we obtain a dark blue with a very fine brush with the tip of a brusher, we with a very light hand can draw the sts of the les And you can also go down. But before that, with ultra in blue, we imagine a line of the water here. And back. And we slightly darken this part on the sides, especially. Darker here. And on the bottom. Define better with the ultramarine lowly edges. You can add some salogrem Can be greens. Okay. So green. I add some cado green to the ultramarine so that I get sort of turquoise. Soften the edges with some clear water so they're not too harsh. Blended. So you didn't have any hard? Okay. So green here and there. Keep layering, refining and blending. Now lift some color from here from here. You just go with a dry brush. Okay. Now let's try the glass and we continue with the leaves. For the leave, you can continue with this thin brush. You take the sap green, you add some blue, you have a cold cooler green, or here I forgot. For the leaves, you just press and let go. Press and let go so that there is a line in the middle. Same here. Press and let go. And on the other side like this, you just press and let go. Press and let go. You can do also one brush stroke on me. I show you how like this. Two brush strokes. Maybe you can vary the color as some blue. Overlap the now you can go between the you see some space. You can throw some green lines like so. Where you had your pants and lines, but where you see some space just look. Imagine some green stamps. Okay. We we find this. I know we let everything dry. Okay. 7. Continue Layering Flowers and Vase: Now that everything is dry, I will go back with some very dark green sub green with ultramarine blue, and I will draw the stems that lie in the water. Here I have rely that I have glass here, it goes here. It breaks it changes the angle where it meets the water. You can also draw some leaves in the glass. Now let's add color variation here and let's start in this Okay. Now I will add more flowers, darker mimosa flowers with our cu tips. I take my cutip, dip it in water. I take my orange, and I will also dip it in Bncena add the darker dots away from shadow, which is the bottom left corner. No. Now I will go back to my very light lemon yellow. And add on top because it's opaque. Here and there, we add these lemon yellow dots towards light, which is top and right hand side. Like so. Now we let this dry and we paint the shadow of the glass, and then we add the highlights. 8. Highlights and more Darks: Now, we go back to our larger round brush. We take the yellow, and we dilute it very, very much and we will just paint a surface. Yeah. Were the glass is placed. I saw. Then I take some so green, bicular green mix with the train blue, the color of the glass. Starting from this corner and from this corner, I draw like this. Okay. That's our handle to start with and then we reinforce it when it's dry. Now that the glass is dry, I can take my white gelpen and I can draw some highlights on the glass here, the rim, the water. I saw also here, the sick bottom of the glass. Also the black. And I can draw a line here. Like so. Then we take some darker green because I prefer to have some more color variation here. It's sap green with a lot of ultramarine bloom, that will just darken some of the leaves just to have some variation or add some dark leaves that overlaps. Also here I have some green on this side. Because coloration is so important in watercolor. A couple of leaves here and there. A between the flowers. Okay. Now, we only have to darken the shadow on the left hand side of the glass, and we finish. 9. Last Touches: Now, as a very last touch, really, very last starch, I will dip my cutibs in the very light lemonello and add some flowers, and you add some dotzer towards the bottom in a random manner. Here and there. Okay. This is so nice. I need some dark here so I take the Indian yellow now. Maybe you can always refine. You need to know when to stop here in the back. See? Impression of the glass. Yeah. I really like this. We can. You know what? We can also put some highlights here in the thickness of the glass. Okay. Now it's really finished. Thanks a lot. I think it was easy, but you didn't think it was so easy to paint me more the flowers, right? It can be very easy if you use the right tools. 10. Add Shadow: M now to make sure it's dry, we touch with the back of our fingers because if we touch it with the fingerprints, we can leave a mark. But this is perfect. You take this very dark green with lots of ultramarine blue and you just make a sick dark line below the glass like this. Just pure ultramarine blue. Then with clean water, you just Just pull it in the direction of light like this. And here, you can drop some. Perfect. And that's it. Now, when it dries, it's finished. I wear mimosa. 11. Wrap Up: Congratulations for completing your project. I hope you will upload it in the project gallery so that I can give you a personalized feedback. It's very important for me also that you leave a review so that other students can discover this class. I hope that you found every step easy and that you will keep these new techniques that you have learned for a lifetime. Thanks a lot. And I see you my next class. Cha cha.