Paint an Autumn Wreath in Watercolour

1. Introduction: Hi, everyone. I'm Emma Tildesley and welcome to my first Skillshare class. I'm an artist based in a little place called Worcestershire in the UK and I work primarily in watercolor ink and graphite. I've been an artist for many years now and first started with watercolors approximately five years ago, and I fell in love with their magical qualities and the wonderful techniques that you can use with them to create rich tones and really soft, gentle looks. It's one of my favorite mediums to use. In today's class we are going to be putting together an autumn wreath and it looks much like this one. I'm going to break everything down for you step-by-step. We are going to take it all apart. We're going to learn the techniques. We're going to build on those techniques and at the end you're going to put it together and you can either create your own wreath, or you can go with the wreath that I've created into a final project which you'll then upload and share with Skillshare. If you have little to no experience of watercolors and that's absolutely fine because this course is aimed at beginners, where we're going to explore two different techniques. We're going to explore the wet on wet technique, and we're going to explore the wet on dry technique. Hopefully, this will give you a good foundation to build on for future watercolor works. I'd really like to thank you for joining me, and we'll crack on with the first lesson. 2. Materials: The first thing that we're going to discuss is materials. This is just my preferred list of materials and the materials that I use every day. I am by no means saying that you've got to go out and purchase all of these materials whatsoever. Whatever watercolors you have at home, for the purpose of this class, that will be absolutely fine. The only important thing is your paper, which we'll discuss in a minute. But all of my items I have listed on a PDF that you can download and have a look so you don't have to keep referring back to this video if you want to know brush number sizes or whatever. I've also put on a list and some cheaper alternatives because I know that these can be very expensive. If you just have any watercolor and you just want to have a play about, then you don't want to be going out and getting a whole load of expensive stuff when you don't even know if you like it. Let's talk about paper first because as I said, that is the most important. If I was going to suggest one item for you to purchase that you don't already have it would be paper. The paper that I use is by a company called Arches. This is a cold pressed paper. That is very important to use cold pressed because we're going to be doing a lot of wet on wet techniques and cold pressed has a toothy feel to the paper. You can feel the grains and you can feel the little lumps and bumps in the paper. This cold pressed paper is £140 and it's 100 percent pure cotton. It's able to retain a lot of water without warping or buckling, and it's an excellent surface for your watercolors to adhere to. This comes in parts and blocks and single sheets as well. This is a water color block. I just showed you. It is glued, if you can see here. It's glued on all four sides. You are using the block as a support. You haven't got to type your paper down to a board. It has a little hole there where once you finished you just slit your palette notch in and you are able to release the paper. Now, you don't have to have a block. You could have a pad or you could have one of the single sheets. Either of those will do. But when you are thinking about paper, make sure that it's cold pressed, it's 100 percent cotton, and it's at least 300 GMS or £140. That's our paper. Sorry, the size as well. Today I'm working on 10 by 14 inch, which is slightly bigger than A4 size. But A4 is absolutely fine. No problem whatsoever. I just like a little bit more room to create a board if I want to. The next thing that I want to talk about are paints. These are my paints. There's these little half puns, and they are from a company called Shmink. Now, you can get these in these little half pattern size, you can get full patterns which are obviously double the size, and you can get tubes. Whichever ones you have are absolutely fine. It really doesn't make it a difference at all. But this is part of a bigger set, these 10 here. But I didn't want to work from the big pallet, so I'd like to take them out individually. You can get a better gauge of what colors go with each other when you take them out and rearrange them and put them together. It's a nicer way to work as far as I'm concerned. These 10 colors that I have chosen will be listed on the PDF. With Shmink, they don't actually come with names, they come with these little numbers. So you have to go on the color chart and get the names for them. I've written all that up. But also there is going to be the alternative paints on there as well. Anyway, we've got a selection of browns across the bottom, and then we've got altimate, gold, and orange, red, and a green across the top. That is paints. Next, we're going to talk about brushes. These are my favorite workhorse brushes. My very, very favorites. All of them are round. That's one thing, I always use round brushes. I just prefer the shape of a round. I can get very fine lines with them and I can also get very thick lines with them. This brush here this is number 6 and this is a dagger round 8 brush. I use this specifically for mixing paint. This is a synthetic brush and it's got a very good snap-back on it. But as I said, I use this specifically for mixing paint. These here, these are Winsor and Newton Series 7 brushes and these are sable hair. I don't want to ruin these by keeping scuffing them in the paint and mixing them with color because they will wear quicker. I saved this one just for mixing my paints and that's about it. That's that one. For actually painting, I use, as I said, Winsor and Newton Series 7. I use a selection of sizes that are all round and this is a 5, a 4, a 3, and then a really teeny, teeny, tiny 0, 0, 0. That obviously is for fine detail work. Those are the four size brushes that I use. Next thing is a palette. I use this 10 well palette here. I like that it has slopping wells because the paint runs down the circles here when it's full. It also has these little round ones just for smaller amounts of paint. It's ceramic. So it doesn't stain and the paint doesn't do weird things when it's drying out and stop painting and crocking it weirdly. I do recommend either a ceramic plate or a ceramic tile. Anything ceramic will do for mixing when you're painting something. Next, we're going to need some masking tape and that is for if you don't have a watercolor block and you've got a watercolor pad or single sheets. You're going to want to take that sheet down or tear your sheet off your pad and tape it down to some stiff board. Either a wooden board or a craft mat. Something stiff that's going to give your paper support and that's not going to let it warp underneath. This is a low tack masking tape for painters. It's not going to ruin the surface of your paper when you apply it. Then we're going to need a pencil, so normal HB pencil. I like HB because it's not too dark, it's not too light. It's perfect. It's easy to erase. We are going to need paper towels to wipe our brushes off. I like to use two pots of water, one for dirty colors and one for clean water because we're going to be wet on wet. We need that water that we'll be applying to our paper to be clean. I use one for rinsing my brush and one for applying clean water. The next thing, this is my little magic trick, that says we are going to be using Blu Tac instead of an eraser. Blu Tac is a wonderful, wonderful tool and I'll show you how you use it in a minute. Lastly, we're going to need a line drawing and we're going to need some tracing paper. The line drawing you can download and print off. Then you are simply going to trace your images and we're going to transfer them onto a watercolor paper. I think that's it. Then of course optional is a cup of tea, some chocolate, or some biscuits, some good music. Let's get cracking with painting. 3. Transferring your Image: The first thing that you're going to want to do is transfer your images to your watercolor paper. Now, if you're comfortable with drawing, then you can just go ahead, look at the line drawing sheet that I've provided and draw those images straight onto your watercolor paper. But just remember that with cold press paper, your pencil will go in and out along the groups of the paper and you want to use a very very light hand. You don't want to be scrubbing at this paper when you're rising because you will lose some of the toothy surface and that's not what we want. Very light touch when drawing on watercolor paper. If you are not comfortable with drawing, then that's why I've provided these line drawing sheet for you, we're going to simply take a piece of tracing paper and a little bit of masking tape just to secure it, there we go. Now, let's start with these icons, let's make another one. We are simply going to with a sharp pencil because tracing paper will wear down the tip of your pencil very quickly. With a sharp pencil, we are going to go around the edges, following the line on each of the different objects. There not complex line drawings there, they're very simple. Might not, I'm going to turn it over. We're going to do exactly the same on the other side because we need this image to be reversed, very carefully, go over the lines that you've just created, and this is just of course the reference because once we start painting, we're not going to see these lines at all. This is just so you've got your basic shape right down in front of you. Let's now put our line drawing aside. We're going to flip the tracing paper black over, so that the image is going to be the correct way up. We're going to secure the tracing paper to a watercolor paper and we're going to start to rub. Now when we rubbing on watercolor paper, we need to apply a certain amount of pressure to make sure that the drawing transfers. But we don't want to be scrubbing really really hard because again, we're going to damage the tooth of that paper and that's a big no. We need enough pressure that we're going to transfer, so if you lift up you will see. I hope you can see that there. You will see that your drawing is transferring or not, you will know whether to use a bit lighter pressure or a bit harder pressure. This is where you'll notice that your pencil will wear down really quickly for some reason on tracing paper. Don't rush this because if you rush, you will have a tendency of putting more pressure than is needed on your watercolor paper. Let's remove that, and there you go, there is my line drawing. Let's just zoom you in slightly. If your line drawing comes out darker than that, I mean that's about as dark as we want it. But if it does come out lighter than that the Blu Tack that I talked about earlier, take a piece of Blu Tack, give it a bit of a squeegee about, and instead of erasing your drawing, the best way to lighten it is to press your Blu Tack around the edge over your graphite and that will lift it and lighten it without damaging the paper. Whenever I want to remove pencil from watercolor paper, this is what I do. There you can see that it's really really lightened it, but I haven't had to scrub at my paper, I haven't had to damage the tooth in any way whatsoever, that's a great little tip for you there. Also, if you get any dust, it'll pickup any dust as well which wonderful. You're going to do that for all of the images and get them all on that watercolor paper. 4. Mixing Paint: All of our items are now transferred and the first thing we're going to start with are leaves. We're going to make up some mixes of our paint ready because the last thing we want to do is apply wet base to our paper, and then have to go and mix up our paints as well. We're going to mix those up. Now this jar here, I keep the clean water and then I'll have my other jar right here next to my paper towels for rinsing. I'd like to add a little bit of water in each well and then I'll go and mix my paints in there. Start with the yellow. I'm taking quite a bit of pigment and then just mixing that in with that water up there. Now the other thing you want to do is keep a scrap piece of paper with you and you can then test the strengths of your paints on that piece of paper. We do want them quite vibrant, but we don't want them full pigmentation, if you like. We want them a medium strength, so I'm going to add a little bit more to that yellow, and the rinsing water off and my fresh and then going in to mix up my orange. [inaudible] taking some other pigments and add more. Again, testing the strength on that scrap piece of paper. Now remember that watercolor does dry significantly lighter than how it first appears when it's wet. Do bear that in mind when you're mixing your paint. I'm just going to go ahead and do that for all of those now. 5. Leaves : All of my paints are mixed and here are the values that I want to be working with. That's that. Let's explain the wet on wet technique a little bit. As I said, we want always to use clean water when we're applying the wet-base to our page. We don't want that water to be muddied or dirty, we want it extremely clean. The first thing that we're going to do is load our brush with water, and swipe it off on the side. Then we're going to fill in our shape with the clean water. We're going to start to write the page, but we don't want the water to be pooling, so when I filled in the shape, you'll be able to see the the amount of water that we want. Don't particularly worry about getting the shape exact because we will refine that later on, just be more concerned about how much water you're getting on your paper. Now you can see that I have a sheen. It's not too wet, it's not running in any direction, but there's a sheen on my page. That is about how wet we want it, maybe slightly more around the edges. If you feel like you paper is drying out, you can always just add a little bit more and spread it evenly across. If you're in a very hot room and you paper dries out quickly, mine's under a lot of lights for these videos, so it will dry out quickly. Yeah, that is the sheen that we're aiming for. Now when you work with home white, you need to work quickly, so that your paper doesn't dry out. We're going to go straight in and we're going to start with some of our lightest colors. I'm going to use this yellow ocher color here, and I'm picking up the pigment and I'm just tapping it, and releasing it into the leaf. Like so, on various little places. I'm picking up a little bit more, and then you watch as the paint works its magic, and moves around the page. I'm going to rinse my brush off, and I'm going to pick up a little bit of the orange, and start tapping that in as well. That is then going to merge in with that yellow ocher color, and create some really interesting effects. A bit more around here. You can add that pigment in directly on top of your other color, and it's just going to go and mingle nicely. Now we're going to go for a third color. We're going to add a bit of a darker brown, so we're going go through this brick, color brown. We're going to think about the leaves and that this darker color, where would that be? It would be around the edges of the leaves mainly where they've gone really dry. Then we'll have a little bit in the center here. I'm going to go in with a slightly lighter brown. I'm going to tap in that in places, and then lastly I'm going to add a little bit of green just to few little areas, around the middle where it hasn't quite fully dried out yet. Actually no. I'm going to go for a tiny little bit of red, just in few little places, just to add a bit of interest. Now I'm going to take my very tiny 000 brush, and I'm just going to use the pigment that's there, and drag it along to refine the edges of those leaves. Get those points back, and get those nice, clean edges. Wet my brush again and tap it off, and the same thing. You're not adding anything extra, you're using what's already on your page and just refining those leaves a little bit. The trick with wet on wet is knowing when to stop, if your water is really drying out, then you need to stop adding pigment then, because you are going to create some not very nice marks and you'll going to get hard-lines, so always apply your pigments when your paper is wet. Just teasing that paint into place where we want it. Then bringing those lively crisp edges back. There we go, so this is the inside of our first leaf. Now using some clean water, I'm just going to drop that into the stem area in the same way that we did the main body of the leaf. Just getting that stem area wet, and ready with paint. Then I'm taking the darker brown and I'm just dropping that in. I'm pushing it up all the way to make the leaf. We're going to add a little bit of interest, I'm just going to dirty a tiny bit of that red color. There, and some of my darkest color, I'm just going to add a few little dots like that. There we go. Our first leaf is now ready to dry, so once that's dry, we're going to then go and add in the detail. We'll move on now to our second leaf. 6. Leaves Part 2: okay for the middle leaf grain. I'm going back to my size five and I'm doing exactly the same thing. Go around all the contours of the leaf on creating more What vice? Ready to drop paint into exactly the same as we did before. I suppose the tricky part is just simply following the controls of those leads to make sure that your paper is evenly wet. No puddles, no dry areas, just nice and saturated. An old prices. If you do see any puddles, you can always just draw. You brush off on your paper towel and then usually brush to pick up that excess water. So say, for instance, I had a bit of a poodle. There were after started all that water. As you can see dry my portion, my paper tell I controlled it across. And the brush is thirsty because it's dry and it's gonna pick up that water so they have a guy that leaves ready. So for this life, I wanted to go with a really strong red and gold leaf. So we're gonna start with the yellow and drop that right into the center, just like that. And then around the edge about. We're going to art a little bit of orange, and that's going to sort of floating to the yellow, mingle with it and then rinse the first guy in. I'm going to go into these made red color on around the edges of the arrange. I'm adding guts. This is all gonna merge nicely together. Some of this is going to take down into the points, but those leaves dropping that pigments in watching is it explodes and does its magic. It's one of my favorite things about watercolor is it's so unpredictable and No. Two things that ever the sign Well, not so much unpredictable. But you know, it has a magic y of its own and bring a little bit of that into the L. A. Mike Maps. I'm gonna rinse my brush off, and then I'm gonna take my darkest red on and, you know, private, very reality. Reg is now. My paper has started to dry a little bit here but the edge, but I know it's wet here, so it's still going to blend. I think that's with that major raid that put down, so I'm still OK toe in. If, however, that made with red was drawing. I would not be able to go ahead and work anymore. On that, I'd have to wet the paper first. So I didn't read into the contours, but deeper it. So the joints and they picking up a little bit more on again just using it on those very very tips. Mr. Ready? Get them some popping definition needs colors. Just merge so beautifully together Create a really fiery all to me. No, I'm going to rinse up my brush and I'm gonna take my pond of pigment Get a little tiny bit of clean water and I'm gonna pick up some pure pigment from the pan. And I'm just gonna drop that in right on those contours there. I'm right on the very tips just to really bring up beautiful wine color gorgeous red. And I'm going to refine a few of my little points again. So we're gonna clean that. Our idea? No. Went straight into my clean water, so I'm gonna have to change that now. Uh, just go in on refined some of your veggies, just like we did on the other piece. Okay, So while we're waiting for that one too dry. We're gonna make stride along with the last one on again. Go straight in. Applying water for you, vice getting all those nooks and crannies. The Ganges. Make sure you've got that lovely Shane on the paper pools, dry areas, make sure it's all even. And then we can start. So I'm gonna go for quite a, uh, dark brown sort of crispy looking belief with this one. So I'm gonna add some of that either worker on drop that into the center down here. No, I'm going to go in one of my dark browns, Start adding that around my edges, bringing it down to mates. Oh, if you put some of your darker colors like we did with that red in these contours of believe, that's what helps to give, believe some form and make it sort of like it's not totally flat in Europe, you know that in a little does it. That's and then I'm going Teoh, go in with that sort of brick red and that that wow really stop to dark in some of these areas, The best thing is you can just play. You can just experiment to see what works for you. What color do you want to put where there's no hard fast rules about where your color should bay? It's all fun on trial and error and experimenting. Now we're going. I'm going to take a dump brush with my very darkest pigment. I'm gonna go straight into the paint takes and that's and use this just on the areas. I want to be really, really dark just to give those lovely pop of collapse. - I love watching the paints explode together. I'm just doing a little refining us. Go along right that insurance member shelf and that freak red pains. I'm going to go directly into that as well. And just a few dots Is that here in there as well? A lot. Mixing in the stronger pigments. Stronger points him with the lights. That gives a beautiful contrast. Then I'm gonna just add the tiniest little bit of orange just here and there. Just that do it's think. Okay, so let's let that one drought and we'll go, but I can start adding some details to our 1st 1 7. Leaves Detail: We're all dry now and look at some of the fabulous textures and patterns that we've got, each one completely different. We're going to start adding some at the detail now. To do that, I'm going to start by taking my zero, zero, zero brush again a really, really tiny one. I'm going to take a dark brown. I'm going to add a little bit of water into that. The consistency of this I want it to flow like an ink. Going back to my scrap it of paper, I'm going to test it on there first and make sure that I can get nice fine lines, so I know that that's the right consistency because it's not clumpy. It's not to thick that it's dry on the paper. It's just nice and flowing and thin, but a really good, decent pigment. I load my brush up and I'm just going dub a little bit of the excess off on that tissue paper first. Let's move this out of the way a little bit. We're going to start with our first leaf, so the first leaf I'm going to do pretty simple. I'm going to from the middle, I'm just going to do a really thin line of the center of the leaf. Now, my brush is barely touching the paper here, so you'll see it skipped in some places, but that's fine. I like that. I don't mind it skipping. My brush is barely touching the paper because that's the way that I'm going to achieve the finest lines. Now that I've got that center between place, I'm going to use the pointy bits on the leaf as reference points. I'm going to just take a few veins out from the center really lightly, and type them up to make the points. They don't have to be all the way from the center. I just want them to be nice and as thin as we can get. If you don't feel comfortable, just practice. Practice doing fine lines on your scrap paper for bit first, get the right consistency with your paints, get the right amount of pressure, and just keep practicing. It all comes with practice. Then we're going to do exactly the same on the other side. Another thing, if you find it easier to turn your paper to draw your lines, then by all means, turn your paper. Sometimes it can make things a lot easier than instead of trying to get your hand in weird angles. I'm not turning mine now because I'm trying to keep it straight so that you can see what I'm doing. But that is it for the details of that leaf. That is nice and done. I'm finished. While I'm on that dark pigment, I'm going to move on to the end leaf. Keeping in that dark brown again and loading my brush up. I'm going to have a line from the center again, a nice thin line, but this time I'm going to focus at the top. I'm going to come back to meet that one, and then over there. Then again from here, I'm going to come up and I'm going to fork the end of the veins, and from here and again at the bottom. I'm going to load my brush up again and do exactly the same on the other side. Never worry about things being completely symmetrical. Nothing is perfectly symmetrical in nature. So many different variations and that makes things look more authentic. We've got those lines in, and then I'm just going to add a few more. Let's bring you in a little closer so that you can really see where I'm going with this. I'm expanding of the lines I've already created. I'm just going to create another few little forks of those central veins. Just like that, and then those veins of that leaf are done. Once that's dry, I'm going to move on to the stem because I don't want to get any water on this line and disturb it. I'll rinse this brush off. Now for the red leaf in the middle, we're going to use yellow. Again, we're doing exactly the same thing. Getting our pigment nice and strong, straight from the palm, testing it first to make sure that it's nice and ink like and not too thick. Tap in a little bit off and then going in. Now with this leaf, I'm actually going to make it slightly thicker at the bottom here. Because our stem is also going to be that beautiful yellow, bringing the line up and going to stop halfway up the middle of the leaf. Then I'm going to start bringing my lines out. Now, the yellow on this makes a beautiful contrast against the red and it really stands out. I'm doing exactly the same thing as we did on that second leaf. I'm just adding really thin, forked veins, and just following the natural flow of the leaf. The vein is coming out from the center in a star shape. If you can see that there, so they're all coming out from this central point. Now, I'm going to take it up from that center and go straight at this top part, and add our dear leaves another little tip, when we're doing the vines, I do tend to hold my brush slightly further down than I would normally. I'd normally hold it like a pen, but I'm holding it here. It seems to give me more control and lets me, the more light handed. It also makes most strokes a little bit lighter, so it's just nice and organic. Then the last one, again, coming out from that central point. If you feel anywhere needs darkening up you can always just re-go over it like that. We'll let that dry and we'll just go back and fill in the stem here. I'm going to go straight in on this one with my light brown paint. I'm going to fill in the stem directly with the paint, I'll not use ink. A wet base first in that stemming. Rinsing my brush, and just right at the top, add in a few drops of the darker brown so that, that bottom part of the leaf where it's darker is going to blend in, and then another few darker spots as we go down. Now back to yellow leaf. I'm going to go straight into my yellow mix not more Pam this time into the yellow mix. I'm going to bring that from that point, take it down, fit in that shape again. Now I'm just going to add just a tiny little bits of the mid red. Keeping the yellow at the top so that it matches in with that vein, and then the tiniest, tiniest hint at that darker down here, just to tie everything in together. There are our first three leaves, all done. If you want to, go and have a play, go and do some more of those. Practice. Have a play with the colors, choose different combinations, see what different textures and different looks you can get. Have a play about with the veins, try and do different variations of them. Just go and practice those new skills that you've learned and come up with different combinations. The next lesson, we're going to move on to ease berries. Let's move on ahead. 8. Berries: Let's do some berries. Now, we are going to be doing red berries here, and the first thing that we're going to do is using a little tiny brush for this, we're going to go in and wet a few of the batteries and lay down that wet base. However, where we've got two berries that are next to each of other, so for example, here we've got one berry sitting over the top of the next. We're not going to do those two berries together because we want them to stand out from each of them, so we're going to wet that berry, and then we're going to wet another berry over here. If I wet the berries that are next to them, they're going to bleed into each other and I won't be able to make them stand out. We've put down our base layer, now I'm going to dip into that dark read just using a tiny bit of pigment, and I'm going to drop it in with that tiny brush from the bottom, just little drops at a time and try and save a little bit of white space at the top for highlight. I just add in little bits and pieces like that [inaudible]. We do that again on the next one, so just dropping in bits of that pigment, leaving a little bit for our highlights up here. Now, adding no extra pigment to my brush, I'm just going to take the very, very tip and go around the edge so that we have a line around the edge of that berry. Again, the same for this one. Just taking it and giving it an edge. Now, while that pigment is still wet in the paper, I'm going to take some water and pop it directly into the pan of that red so that I get a really strong pigment. I'm just tapping that right at the very edge of the berries, so that we naturally have a darker outside edge, and that will blend in with the lighter red, all adding to the highlight effect. Then let's do that again on the next one. Just tapping that in, right around the edge. That's the beauty of having this tiny brush, is that you are able to control how much pigment you're putting in. Now this one I don't feel it's quite dark enough, that first one. Because it's still wet, I'm going to tap in a little tiny bit more right at the outside, and that's it. I'm going to leave those alone now. I'm going to wait till those have completely dried before I do the berries next to them, because otherwise they will ruin. I'm going to move on and do the next couple. Now you can do two or three berries at a time, wherever you feel comfortable with, however quick you decide you can work and just keep dropping in little bits of pigments and leave in space for your highlights. Now I've got a bit too much water on that one, so I'm going to dry my brush off, put it on, and soak up some of that water. You see how my brush wants to soak it up? Like that. Back into that pigment and add in little spots a bit there. I begin over here. Now, taking the tip of that brush again and giving the berry an edge, and again. Now back in straight to the pen again, and darkening that up the outer edge. I'm just finessing the shape of the berry, and again,and again, this one. I can see I've got a little bit of a bleed on this one, so I'm just going to work that shape a little bit more. Doesn't necessarily matter that my berry is going to be bigger than I intended it to be. They're not all equal shapes and sizes. Using the very tip of that tiny brush I can just make that nice and neat. Then move on. Go and do the next three single berries in exactly the same way. Then we will come back when all of the berries are completely dry. Then we will do the two, that are lying underneath these front two. Those berries are dry now. There really is no different technique to the other berries. Its just the key to letting them properly dry. I'm going to go in and just wet ,that one. I'm going to do this one at a time like that. Take a tiny bit. Again add more pigment, leaving that little bit of a highlight. Here I'm taking the pigment and right up to the dry berry. I am leaving my highlights slightly lower. Then doing one line around to give the berry the edge. Again, going straight into the pan and taking a really dark pigment and just dotting that in. I am putting that right up to that berry because I want it to be dark. It's creating a shadow. I'm taking that down and around, like that. Then we're going to do exactly the same from the other berry. Wetting in the base again, taking a little bit of the mix. Adding that in and putting it up to the berry next to it. Coming around cream edge, refining that line down here, like that into my dark pigment and that around the edge. Then also putting it right up to that berry. Where we have the highlight on that berry, it's going to sit beautifully against the other berries. You can see the contrast between the highlight and the dark shadow of the berry behind it. We can make round in a single shape, like that. Okay. Let's move on and fill in the branch. Once I [inaudible] around there and I light base on the branch. I'm going move up now and I'm going to use the Number 3 brush. I'm actually going to paint in. This is another reason why you need to make sure your berries are dry. I'm going to paint in those branch lines with more water and give it that wet base. If you put these base down when those berries are wet, you're going to have the red run everywhere into that base. Paint them nice and coated. Just making sure that it's all even. Then I'm going into that yellow ocher nice light color and drop in that around the branch. Just pushing it through helping it along its way. If you feel more comfortable, you can stay with the thinner brush to do this. It does help to get your branch lines nice and thin. The more that is wet. I'm adding some of my darker tone. I'm adding that to the junctions where the branches split from each other. Where they would naturally be darker. Just a few dots along the under side of the branch. If you imagine your branches this way around, sorry about that I was out of view there. If you imagine your branch is the way round and I'm just adding little dots to the under side of the branch. Then when that's dry, that should give us a lovely mix. I am just working this a little bit, making the colors blend a little bit on the paper. That's it. That's our branch complete. If you want to go and practice those and do a few more berries, if you would feel more comfortable doing that then go ahead draw another few up. Practices those techniques. Then we will move on and the next we will be doing is pods. 9. Pods : Here's our pod layer. Now with pods, I like to work in sections simply because I don't want the leaf color bleeding into the pod color and I don't want the pod color to bleeding into the stem color, so I do work in sections. We are at first layer and I'm using my size three brush again now, so we take in that clean water and I am filling in the pod section. I'm doing the pod first because by the time that's dry, I can work on either the leaves or the stem, and they're not going to interfere with each other and that white matter. My pod is nice and saturated. I'm going to add a tiny bit more water to that yellow oca mix just to thin it down a little bit more because I want it to be quite pale for this. Just going to test it on my sheet and still want a little tiny bit more. When I'm looking at my pods, if I'm thinking that my light source is coming from here, I'm going to put my lightest color at the top of the pod, around here like that. Then I'm going to go into my lightest brown and I'm going to have that around the edge of that lightest color mingling in. I'm rinsing brush, I'm draining off the water on my brush on the paper towel, and I'm using the tip to choose blend those colors together. I'm pushing the light into that brown, just doing little tiny, small circular motions, and giving them a bit of a blend. Add a bit more of that brown now, that same mid-tone, and I'm going to come in with my brick red color, my brick red brown, and I'm going to start adding that around this outer third area. Bringing in a tiny bit on the edge and down. I'm taking that all the way in to the bottom of the pod like that. Rinsing my brush again, I'm picking up some of that dark red, and the dark red is going right down this bottom corner here, and it's just going to mix with that brick color. Washing my brush again, going back into that brick color and just dotting it around, letting these two colors just bleed together and do what they want to do. Now, I'm going to swap brushes and go back down to my tiny brush. I'm going to take some of that red again and I'm going to add tiny dots just around this area here. Wash my brush again, and I'm going to do the same with that brick red color, just adding little tiny dots here and there. I've dried my brush completely, so it's just nice and dry, and I'm tapping back into those dark red dots, just to slightly lighten them, and my brush is going to soak the model, just to further blend them a bit. I'm going to go back in to my lightest color and just add some more around the pod. I'm just dot batting as well with some nice variations of color. I'm going to put darker again. Now I'm going straight into that dark pigment, the red, adding a few spots of that around the outside. Tiny very slides, and then I'm going right in with my darkest color, which is a gray-tone brown. Taking a bit of it on that brush, and I am adding tiny bits of this, just at the bottom of the pod in little dots. Be careful to still be doing this while you paint. 10. Pods Part 2: So now that the green leaves are dry, we're just going to add some detail to that and then we are done. So going straight into that dark pigment and getting it nice and liquid like, again, test it on your scrap paper. So that it's like Ink and it's not too thick and this is most important to this bit to make sure it's the right consistency. Dab off a tiny bit and we're going to go around the edge of the leaf, around the inside of the edge. Then we going to do a few very thin lines within the leaf. Again around the edge, then thin lines just inside. This is just repeat on each of the leaves. Using that light pressure just like we did in the veins in the leaves. This side now, keep going while you've got that nice thin consistency. As I said, turning your paper, you may find this easier so that you can get around those little wiggles. When you join the lines, try to follow the lines in the center, sorry, not the outside, but try to follow the shape of the leaf. Okay, so to marry up these leaves to the part we are going to rinse our brush and I'm going to take some of that dark pigment. Sorry, we're going to take some of the dark mix not the dark pigment and we're going to just dot that on to the top here. Just in little dots. Again, just little dots and that makes the dot brown melted down. That's just going to marry the two together so that the leaves don't look like they're floating on the top. For the last bit of this, we're going to add a bit of detail to the pods. So strike back into that pan. Into that lovely inky mix, dab a little bit off. Now, we're going to do a couple of lines on the pods. We're using that same pressure where the brush is barely skimming inside. It's going to skip in some place and we're following the shape. So this line is going to follow this side, then at the center they're going to be more straight. Right, that's all we want. So do it again on this one, you're going to come up the side, very fine lines up the side following the shape up the center and again. I'm just going to add a few dots of this dark ink to that, that we've just added up here just to add a bit more interest. There's our pods and our pods are done. So again, if you want to have a practice, keep going, keep practicing till your happy. Try different colors, see where it takes you. Just enjoy and have fun with it. We will move on and do our last set, which will be icons. 11. Acorns: The last item that we're going to paint is our icons. Lets get in to it. I'm going to wet both of the bottoms of the icons, and I'm using a smaller brush now, because this is a smaller area. I'm using my size four round to do this, because these bottoms aren't bordering each other, it's fine to do both of them together. However, the tops are bordering, so those are going to have to be done separately, so they don't run into each other. I'm going into that, paint yellow color and just stopping that. Although I doubt the tip in the edges, and all my icons, do happen to have very smooth edges because they are naturally very smooth. I'm taking that all the way and really refining that edge as I go. Washing off and on just with my clean brush, I'm just going to dab, at the tip of the icon, wipe my brush, dab up again, and again just to lighten the area up like that, and then I'm just going in with my lightest brown and draw up in that along that top edge. Very, very slightly down the side, just a bit more, yeah you will find that edge there, and I'm going to quickly clean my brush, and using the very tip in small circular motions, am just going to blend those two colors together, watch my brush off. To push that brown back a little bit, so that we're pushing that yellow ocher into the brown, and just diffuse in it so that there's a nice blend going on. I'm going to do exactly the same just to make sure that other one is wet enough. Can seem starting dry out, so I'm just going to add a little bit more water, and then we're going to do exactly the same on the second one. Now that that's dry let's work on the tops. I'm going to start over here on the left hand side, and we're going to white that base again, making sure that it's nice and even. Again, I'm going in to that yellow ocher color, and I'm just dotting that in the center here, and this is going to be so to where the light's hitting, so this will be the lightest part maybe another round. Now I'm going into not my dark, dark brown, but the second arc is brown that I have, and I'm taking that all the way from the edges, which keep nice, which is nice and neat. I'm patching it up, see that line there? Around up into that stem needing a very tip of my brush here to really key those, that she's nice and clean. That's the great thing about around for, I found that I can get really, really fine lines with this brush. Now I'm just dotting in all around the edge like that light color, leaving that little light between the center. Now I'm going to go into that very darkish brown. I'm going to work that in around the edges, giving a view here some depth. Bringing it slightly across this line using the very tip of my brush again, and keep refining those edges like that. Then I'm just going to very, very gently with the tip of my brush go across the edge line there. Now I'm switching. I've achieved the tiny, tiny zero, zero, zero brush and I'm going straight into my darkest brown, to put a water in there, and again getting into that nice ink consistency that we spoke about, and testing it on my page before I dive straight onto the pace, and that's nice. Now, all the way around the edges, using barely any pressure, I'm just going to fully, little tiny lines will haze out from the sides, If the honeycombs tiny, tiny lines with barely any pressure. Let's take a little bit more That's going all the way around. Those hairs are going cross over as well. If you feel like you need to practice thin lines with this brush first, then go ahead. I'm taking it up to the line of the second acorn. I'm not going to go over there yet because I want to do that once we've painted. I'm going to go back over and fill in any spots where I feel that is missing. If you see a blob of paint at the end of your brush like I just did, just go and wipe the excess off first because you don't want that blob to run down onto your page. Like that. Well, this is still slightly wet and I've got that dark pigment on my brush. I'm going to go in and add some dots of this color. This is going to add a bit of texture on the shell of the acorn. Just some little dots of that darker pigment and it makes a massive difference. Okay. Now I'm going to wait for that one to dry and then, sorry. I'm going to wait for this one to dry and then I'm going to do exactly the same on the second acorn. Okay. I've gone in and applied exactly the same to the base of that second acorn and it's still wet. So while it's wet, I'm going to go in with that small brush again and add the hairs. Just make sure my consistency is right. The hairs are then going to pull out exactly the same as we did with the first one and we're going to go over some of the ones from the first one that we put in. They're not hairs are they, they are little spiky bits but they're like hair strokes, so we'll call them hairs. Taking a little bit more water because my paints getting a little bit dry now, dubbing off the excess. I'm going to paint till and continuing to pull. Now I'm going to take some over, just a few, add a little more paint. I'm going to have a few coming out now in the edge of that first acorn and a few coming out in the edge of this second acorn. Then while that's still slightly wet, again, I'm just going to add some dots and I'm also going to add a darker line of dots around the board where the acorns meet, just so that it gives the shadow effect. So you can see that this one is lying on top. Starting those dots and give a bit of texture. I do keep the dots more to the edges. Again, that's just to give the acorns form, so that they appear more rounded and lighter dots in the middle. Now I'm going to wait for that one to dry. So we go back to this one. Keeping that same little brush. Am going to go into that light brown color and I'm going to add a little bit more water to my mixture because I want this to be rather light. I'm looking at this lightness here. I'm just going to turn my paper slightly. Now, I'm going to add a very fine line along the border of where that shell sits. This is again going to create a shadow. I don't want it to be a harsh line, so I'm going to wet my brush, dab it off on the paper and then I'm just going to very lightly blend the edges outline. Wet my brush and dab it again. It's not a massive difference but it helps. Back in, take a little bit more of that water down pigment and I'm going to add a couple very fine lines just down the edges using that pressure where your paint brush doesn't always touch, where it skips a little bit. Just like that. Then I'm going to go in. Now that one is pretty much dry. I'm going to do the same. Paint that little shadow line. Take a tiny bit of water. If you use that edge and do some very faint fine lines down and I'm following the shape of the acorn. They are not straight lines, they're curved following the shape down to that tip. Just like that. Now, keeping that brush and going back into the paint that I used for the hairs, again, getting that lovely inky consistency that's not too thick, that just flows, dabbing off the excess on my paper towel. Am going to come back and I'm going to add a few of those hairs just around that shadow line, where the shell sits on the top. Same on here. I didn't quite have enough paint there. That just finishes the acorn off nicely. There we go. Those are the two acorns finished. Suitably, fairly I think. So now we'll move on to the conquer. 12. Conker : For the conker. First, I'm staying with this tiny brush and the first thing that I'm going to do is painting these inside lines of the casing if you like. I'm using that yellow ocher and I'm not going wet on wet. I'm taking my wet brush and applying it straight to the dry paper. This is a small area so I don't want to flood it at all. I do exactly the same to the bottom part. Just following along those lines and just painting in that color. I'm going back to my size four and I'm wetting the top part. That yellow would have dried pretty quick where I am with all the lights and because it wasn't wet on wet, it will be dry for me. I'm going in and I'm very carefully applying water to all those little spiky bits and the rest of the top of that casing. Now, you don't have to worry too much by the spiky bit because we can go in and just finesse those lines around. If you think you're a bit worried about those, then don't go in all of the way. My top area is right now. I'm going to go into my lightish brown and I'm going to apply it into those spikes and it'll run down. I wanted to do that while the spikes were at their wettest. It's the smaller areas they have a tendency to dry quicker than the bigger areas. Just neat near those spikes a little bit with the very tip of my brush. Like that. Now I'm going to wash the brush off. Take a little bit of that yellow ocher again, and apply it to those white areas blending it into that brown taking it up to that border. I'm going to go into my reddy brown just a little bit of this on my brush and again go into those spiky bits just to the tips. Make them slightly darker and then I'm going to apply dots of this just here and there. Just like that. Now I'm going to leave that and I'm going to do the bottom half and we're going to do that exactly the same. Turn [inaudible] into a spikes and wetting the body as well. Straight in with my suited orangey brown, lightish brown down those spikes. Now you can do this a little bit more on my brushed one , that's better. My main goal is to get those spikes filled in with color. Washing the brush off and just adding a tiny little bit of that yellow ocher just to blend everything because the bottom is darker than the top naturally anyway. Back into that reddy brown, that breaky color and as in the tips of those spikes and again, dotting my color around just to darken up and just finessing the edges with this a little bit. I'll just wait for that to dry and then we'll going to add some detail. 13. Conker part 2: Real fully drawing now. I'm sticking with my tiny little zero detail brush, and I'm going into my second darkest pigment paint. Keep calling it pigment and it's paint. But it's pigment. Getting that inky consistency, and I'm going to add some details to those in a casing bits. Very fine details. Just going along this border here. Take a little bit more. Now you could do this at the end if you want to, but I'm just going to at these in now. I'm just giving it an edge, very thin edge, skipping in some places, but an edge nonetheless. I'm just going to add a little tiny bit more details, so I'm going to have a line around here, and we're going to add some little tiny, tiny lines from that line going up to the border there. Again on the other side, some tiny lines just following around the little dots there. Now, I'm going to do exactly the same on top. I'm giving it that boarder, and again, add in some of those tiny lines following along with the direction of the casing side balance. Then I might add a few little spots down here, that's where shell's being cracked open, and then I'm going to also wait for that to dry and then we're going to fill in the middle, and add some detail to the outer shells. We're going to do something a little different now. Going to take our size fall, I'm going to go back in, and re-wet that top section. It will work in layers now. We're going to add another base of wet, and so it give a bit more depth and dimension to the outer casing. Now it is a little bit harder to tell whether you've got that perfect chain when you've already got paint down. But if you tilt your page, I don't know whether this is going to pick it up. But if you tilt your page, I can say from here that I have that chain and I'm ready. Going into my darker brown, I'm just taking a little bit of that and darken it at the edges, and my spikes right at the very tips, and I want to add some of that color around the edge of the shell. Not too much, but just enough to give it some form and give it a shape. I'm going to rinse that brush off and go back to my tiny brush and straighting with my darker one. Striking to the paint that we drew the detail with and I want some of that dark right around the very outer perimeters here. Just add that. Now, taking it a little bit of that paint again, I'm going to refine my points on the spikes and make them spiky again. I think it leaves a bit of that when you work in wet on wet, it's very hard to be extremely precise and keep those [inaudible] sharp tips that we need. Never be afraid to turn your paper. It might well be a lot easier to work, and the main thing here is just getting nice spikes. Once you get into that zone, it's very calming. Now I've put my spikes back in. But I do feel like, I've missed one, so I'm going to bring another one, another little short one, just out from this edge. You can always do that if you feel like you're not happy with your shape. Then I'm just going to dot in just like we did with the acorn, a few little dark spots. Now that, that center section is dry again, I'm going to go back to my brick ready color with my little brush. The spikes that we lost, I'm just going to give an outline. We've got the suggestion of them there, like that. Then I may add in a few little drops of that color, just tiny little dots. Again to give a little bit of texture, like that. Then we're going to go and do exactly the same to the bottom. For the center, we're going to do a wet base. I'm going back in with my number four, and we're taking that up to the borders. For the center, we want a nice smooth blend because the conker in the middle is shiny. We don't want to be adding texture and having any roughness, we just want nice and smooth. I've got my base down and I'm adding tiny, tiny bits of the yellow ocher to the middle. That's going to be our light area. Adding in to that orangey-brown and taking that around the light area, and then blending those two together. Because I've blended, I have lost my light area. I can always go back and drop that in. A little bit more of the light pigment. Make my brush a little bit dry and with those small circular motions we did earlier. Dry my brush off again, just blend that out. Give yourself a shiny center, going into that brick red color, and add in lines around the edges. Again, with those small circular motions with the tip of the brush blending that in. Now I'm going to go in to my almost darkest brown. Taking this right out into those outer corners. Just down along that border at the bottom there. From there rinsing my brush, drying it off, and again with those small circular motions blending it in. This is what will help you to achieve that blend. I'm just refining my edges here. Now I'm going into my very deepest brown, and dropping that right at the edges. Right along that border line.Like so. If you feel, you need any more blending, just clean your brush off again and use the small circular motions just to blend in your colors. I'm going to take a bit of the neat paint again. The dark and just really gently tap it, on the very, very outer edges. Just where that shadow is going to be. That's our conker done, so you just got to wait for that to dry. Now let's move on to the final project. 14. Final Project: We've got to the end, we're at the final project. Obviously the final project is to paint a wreath. You have the reference photo of this wreath that I've have designed, and you also have the line drawing. If you want to go ahead and you want to paint this wreath, then that's great. That's absolutely fine. Entirely up to you. Or if you want to use the bits and pieces that we have from the line drawings I've provided, and you want to put those together in your own way and create your own wreath, then please go ahead. I'll be delighted to see them. Or if you want to create something completely new, then do that. Use the skills that we've learned, you know exactly what you doing. We've been through everything on here, there is nothing any different. Utilize all those skills, and let's see what you can come up with and then please, please go ahead and upload them to Skillshare. I'll be really really excited to see the work that you produce. I'm really looking forward to it, I can't wait. I really hope you've enjoyed this course, and most importantly, I hope that you've learned some new skills and you've had fun, and you've enjoyed doing it. I know that I've enjoyed producing it for you, and I can't wait to produce many more. Yeah please, go and upload your work, I really want to see what you've been doing, and I'll see you very soon. Thanks for joining me.