Paint & Create Beautiful Christmas Cards in Relaxing Watercolour - Beginner Friendly Tutorials

1. Introduction: Is the season to be follo la, la, la, la, Hi, guys. My name is Claris and I am a watercolor artist and designer from Toronto, Canada. My specialty is loose watercolor flowers, and I started out my watercolor teaching journey over on YouTube a while back, and also find a ton of video tutorials by me on YouTube, which is where I started out. In addition to teaching online tutorials and workshops, I also host watercolor retreats because why not introduce folks to watercolor while traveling to beautiful places. This class, I am going to be teaching you guys how to relax. And learn how to paint in watercolor as we paint some beautiful, crafty Christmas cards. I'm also a proud ambassador of Princeton brushes, so you will often find me using these brushes exclusively in all my teaching content online and offline. As an artist, I firmly believe that supplies are pretty important in your learning journey. So if you're new to watercolor and are unsure what supplies to use, I do have an Amazon storefront that lists a bunch of my favorite supplies from Bginner to intermediate, feel free to check 2. About this Class: In this class, you are going to learn how to prioritize your time while taking time for you to sit down and paint. You're going to learn some amazing watercolor techniques that's also beginner friendly to paint a couple of items. By the way, there is a base drawing as well, so it eliminates that whole added pressure of having to sketch. But if you feel challenged or compelled enough to do your own sketching, I completely encourage it, go with the flow and do that for you. Back to my list. We're going to learn how to paint in watercolor. We're also going to be using shimmery metallic watercolors because we are creating holiday Christmas greetings after all, why not? In this lesson, you'll also find that I'm very specific of the colors and the metallics I pick because we're also learning how to create beautiful compositions, we're learning how to pair elements together so we can then create our greeting cards. Now the whole purpose of this lesson is, like I mentioned, taking time for you, learning how to paint, and creating beautiful artwork to send to friends and loved ones. If you're ready to begin, I suggest you take a look at the supplies list in the project description below. Download the base drawing so you can trace it out, then hop back on here and let's get to painting so we can create some beautiful cards together. 3. Class Project: So for your project, I would love it if you guys paint along, create your beautiful cards, and then post either your favorite or all of them. In the project description below, I would love to see how you guys do. It's not only encouraging for me to see, but it's also encouraging for others who are typically not that comfortable sharing artwork. I hope you do that. If you're ready to begin, I suggest you take a look at the supplies list in the project description below. Download the base drawing so you can trace it out, then hop back on here and let's get to painting so we can create some beautiful cards together. 4. Supplies in this Class: So for supplies, here's what we're going to be using. For the base drawing to initially paint all our items, I'm going to be using the Strat moore 8.5, sorry, eight by ten cold press watercolor paper. For our cards, we're going to be using the Stratmoe watercolor cards. They are beautiful. They come with envelopes as well, which is why I picked them. For paints, we're going to be using the Daleroni set of 48, as I start painting, I'm going to let you guys know exactly which paints we're using. For our metallics, I'm using MAB watercolors. Again, I'll let you know exactly which colors I'm using, but look how stunning these glittery holographic watercolors are. For some of the lettering that's involved, I am using Karen brush markers in the metallic colors. Then we're also going to be using some of the Princeton brushes, obviously, particularly the Princeton Heritage number three. Princeton Neptune number eight, you can also use the number six and the number four from the velvet touch. And last but not least, I have my Dalerone liquid acrylic pearlescent pearl or sorry, in white pearl. That's it. These are all the supplies I will be using today. If you are curious to find out about these supplies, I have listed all of them in the description below, feel free to check that out. On that note, let's begin. 5. Painting - Part 1: The very first thing we're going to paint is the tree right here, and for that, I'll be using my number three heritage, and we're going to start mixing some green, and I like to use a nice dark wood woodsy green, that's what I call it. For that, we're going to be using Hooker's green, and I'll be mixing a little bit of brown in it. And where's my brown. We're going to be using some burnt sienna. I love the green that comes by just adding a little bit of burnt sienna. You can get such a gorgeous green. This is my favorite. Now, we don't need too much because like I mentioned, little goes along way in watercolor, so this is just right. If we need a more darker version of this color, we're getting it directly from here and we're going to drop it in and build on the layers. Here we go. I'm going to start off with starting down the middle and then from the top and then I'm lightly adding these little strokes to the side. Then what I'm doing is dipping my brush in water and I'm going to continue. But this time what I'm doing is doing a stroke and then adding mini strokes on that stem. Same thing here. I'm just lightly grazing to create this in a very loose manner, loose strokes, and then towards the center, we're just adding more strokes to make it look like there's another branch coming facing forward towards us. I'm going to get more color, drop that in here, watch that bloom in nicely. And we're going to continue down slowly. Take your time, relax. Watercolor is supposed to be fun, and this is meant to be more of a relaxing tone than a stressful one. Take your time, especially because we do not need things to be damp to get certain effects for what we are painting here. Enjoy the process of creation and the satisfaction that comes from. Just lightly grazing and repeating the same thing that we've been doing from the top, can drop some color right here in the middle. We get that nice dark ist color happening in the middle and then going out slowly. Now, right before we reach the bow, we're going to do a very light, we're just going to go with the light green. The reason is we want to make sure we've got ample enough room. We're not going over the bow and even if we do, we can probably fix it by going with a darker color for our bow. That's just pretty much called going with the flow when you're going with the flow and if you accidentally add additional color, you're going to switch and change routes in terms of what you had originally planned. Now, there's still a little bit of leafy action happening around here, so we're going to continue extending and create our last layer of pie needles You can see exactly why I have used the Princeton Heritage number three because it gives us some really nice loose thin strokes, um, once you know how to lightly graze your brush. This is our tree. What I'm going to do next is get a little bit of that darker tone to add in here before it dries up. We're going to be mixing some of the I was going to say heritage. Mixing some of our Hooker's green and then I'm getting more of that brown, which is burnt sienna. I know I said you could mix it directly in here, but I figured let's just do it here. Let's create some good habits. Now we're going back in. I'm starting at the top and I'm lightly grazing to add a couple of strokes to indicate that very top tip to our tree. Then I'm lightly grazing to add these colors in here in the center. You'll notice that it's giving me a very natural, gorgeous bloom. And that is because guys, if you have been following along with a couple of my videos already or my lessons, it's because it is damp. I'm just dropping in the color in the center and it's nicely blooming outward wherever the areas are damp. Look how gorgeous that is. I'm going to add a little bit more of this around the edges of the bow. This is just to really give it that nice stunningly contrast shadowy effect right around our bow. Now you can wait for this to dry or you can simply just be extra careful and maneuver your way around to give our pot a nice coat of color. I am going to do the latter. Feel free to pause and just watch me or continue as you go along if you're feeling gutsy. What I'm going to be using is a mixture of burnt sienna and yellow ochre for my pot. I'm going to start off with yellow ochre. And it's a beautiful yellowish color. Again, using my number three, I'm just going to lightly graze creating the outline for this and then I'm lightly adding strokes in between. I'm keeping this fairly simple for you guys so that you don't get too overwhelmed with a lot of detail. We're going to keep things loose and fun and relaxing. Now you're going to notice some green seeped into the yellow. This is not something I intended, but this is why I mentioned maybe wait for it to dry up before trying this because we've learned so far, if you add color where the areas damp, you're going to see the color bloom. Now, I'm not too worried about this because here's what we're going to do. We're just going to wash off our brush and with a damp brush, we're just going to lift the color and then dab it onto paper towel. Again, I'm not overly concerned because we're going to add some brown to our mix and it's going to give us a nice beautiful blend. I'm going to get some of my burnt sienna. I know it's got some green in there, but I'm not overly worried. Then we're dropping in some of that burnt sienna right here at the top. And just below the ribbon as well. We're just going to allow it to do its watercolor thing and go all around. 6. Painting - Part 2: While that is drying up, we're going to get some rose matter. Again, using the number three, I'm going to get some of this mixed up over here because this green and the matter rose is going to be our dominant colors. I don't mind using two little wells for this and we'll just build up from here as we paint the rest of the items. I'm getting a utered version of this, making sure my brush doesn't have too much water, so I'm rubbing against the side this way. We're going to start by painting very lightly. Again, remember the green is still damp, so I'm keeping a little bit of white space around it. I'm just leaving white space as I paint this in or paint the bow in as well. You'll see exactly why because white space, I'm going to tell you as well, white space adds so much beautiful loose vibes, let's say vibes for lack of a better word. I love this is the part that really is astonishing to me because you can get these amazingly beautiful results by just not worrying about the details and just going with the flow and Less strokes, less is more. We're going to let this dry a little bit. I have a little bit of yellow seeping into that. Again, you can do the lifting technique with your clean damp brush, and slightly lift or lightly lift and dab on your paper towel. We're going to let this dry a bit more before we do anything else. But we can definitely go back to our brown areas and highlight more of that. I'm getting some more burnt sienna and you can see that green has really seeped in. Again, you might like this, you might not. I like it because again, it's giving me the bleeds and the gradients that I really love about watercolor. I'm getting more on the tip of my brush and this time I'm going on this side, don't worry about the yellow if it is seeping too much into your ribbon because we are going to make our ribbon darker. Perfect your little bottom till you are happy. Pulling down some of this color over here to have a little bit of blending going on here. Now we're going to go back to our bow. Back with the Matter Lake Rose, getting more of this color on here. I'm going to go in and start with the edges first. And pulling the color inward to the center. I'm leaving that not open ended for now and I'm going to go onto the next side of the bow and add my details there. Then I am slowly going downward here. I'm starting from the top and pulling down my stroke. Then last but not least for the absolute center, you can use a little bit of brown in your matter red to get a darker tone, and then that's how we are going to get that nice depth within our bow center. One last thing we're going to do is go in and highlight or actually not highlight, add more shadow right around the top of our pot, what we're doing is just getting a darker brown and just dabbing it in here and it's giving us a nice bleed because the area is still damp. So you can take some of your vandyke brown at this point. I'm using some from here and I'm going to lightly graze and add more of these shadowy effects. I'm pulling from the top downward. I'm not going to give this pot any texture you can if you would like to make it a wicker pot. I'm going to leave this as is keeping things simple and fun. Then one more thing because watercolor dries up very, very light. If you're fine with this bowl looking like so, then that's totally okay. But I'm going to go ahead and add a little bit more like a third layer of color. I'm going to start that at the top. Right there, and I'm adding a couple strokes down here. I'm not painting the whole thing. I do not want it to look flat. I'm looking for those beautiful variations of darks and lights within my bow. That's why I'm adding it just in certain areas. And we are done. 7. Painting - Part 3: Next we're going to paint our little babble here and I'm going to use the Princeton. Actually, we're going to start with the number three and do the top portion of it, and then we're going to do the bottom. For the top, because it's that nice, it's supposed to be a goldish color, so we're going to use some of our metallics. In fact, you know what? I'm going to make this portion of the class where we're painting both of these guys just so that we're not going back and forth too much. I'm using some of my pineapple and we're going to simplify this whole process of layering and stuff because these are supposed to be elements in our card. I'm going to use the number three and we're just painting little lines over our drawing, painting in the top and try and get those little frills at the bottom if you can. Perfect. Then I'm going to do the same thing here at the bottom, getting some of my beautiful shimmer and shine. Lightly grazing with the tip of the brush and we're painting this in. Trying to get some of my little scalloped edges at the bottom because I love those. I think it adds such a cute detail to it. Then the little top hook And I'm thickening the hook just a bit. So I don't want it to be too thin and you'll you'll see exactly why. We're going to do the same thing here. Now we are ready to paint the bottom. For the bottom, let's use a beautiful I'm going to use the number four. Let's make one red and one green. Again, keeping in theme with what we're doing. I'll use for the green, we're going to use the leftover green that we have here. I'm just going to paint this one first. Simple, easy, relaxing. What I'm going to do is leave a little bit of white space in here. I started off with using the paint from my palette, and then I'm dipping my brush in water to get more liquid on it because I shouldn't say color because I'm adding water to the color on my brush. This is what's helping me get a nice gradient effect from dark to light. If you notice between the little ornament, the base of the ornament and the top, I am leaving a little bit of white space. Getting more of this color, I'm going to drop that in right here. And then I'm dropping it in at the bottom off to the side here. We're just going to let this sit to dry and we're doing the same thing for our circle or the round babble. For this one, I'm getting my matter Lake red or matter red. It's just matter red. Rose matter hue, sorry. We are same thing, starting darkest color here that I have mixed on this side. I could have used my number eight, but forgot about that. Here we are using the number four. It's just going to take a couple more strokes than the number eight would. Again, notice I'm trying to leave a little bit of white space for some nice glistening effects. In fact, it's not a requirement, but only if you remember you can leave the white space. Sometimes that can be stressful because so many of us are wired to paint everything in a loose watercolor is a little bit of unlearning all of that. Getting more color directly from here and we are doing our favorite part, which is just dropping the color in and watching it bloom and maybe even helping it along if it's not blooming to your liking, we're dropping some at the bottom. So to the side. I'm going to pull some down over here as well. The reason being is I'm going to make this look like a nice dark rich red ornament. I'm getting more color and I'm sweeping this color down while it is damp because I want those nice beautiful gradient like effects. I'm going to get some going down the middle as well. But I'm not painting the whole thing like I did over here, just keep that detail in mind. Then I just want to add more of the darker layers at the bottom into the side here. Love it. One more little thing I want to do is adding some brown to my red, and I want to drop some of this in. I'm mixing that on the side here. Mix it to your heart's content where you're like, Okay, this is a good, dark red, and I want to drop that in here. I'm really adding layers to my babble. Okay. So now we let this dry and then we're going to go back in and add some beautiful details to make them nice and festive. 8. Painting - Part 4: So while these are drying up, let's move on and paint our present right here. Base for the wrapping paper or the box part, we're going to use this metallic color called Jasper and my idea here is to have the base coat be a nice, gorgeous metallic shade, and then the details on the top of this will be more of the mated watercolor or regular watercolor, I should say. Just take your time painting this in. I'm using my number three heritage, making sure that I don't get out of the lines too much. I'm going to do this side first. And then we are doing the same color obviously on all the sides. But what I want to do is try and get a darker version of this. What I'm going to experiment and try is mixing some of this in with this leftover red that we have. I'm adding that here. This is what's going to help us see a stark difference and add a little bit more depth to our present. Let's do this half of it and then I'm going to figure out what we are doing for the top. Perhaps a slightly in between color between the two of these. I'll add more Jasper to it most likely. Love it. Let's add a little bit more jasper to the color. Then again, I'm trying to leave a little bit of white space in between these areas here because I want to hold onto that loose effect, but we're also being intentional. I don't mind that bleeding in. I like how that dark looks blending in just in that one area. The shimmer when you watch it kind of get on the paper. It's so mesmerizing. The number three is my saving grace again, trying to get these nice fine details going on here. This is done. We can now wait for it a little while just to dry up before we get back to paint the ribbons and the beautiful foliage on the top. Next thing we're going to do is I got a little bit of my glitter on here. But we're going to be painting this in, look at that. It's off. Quick revision of previous lessons. If there's any little marks on your sheet, just take a damp brush, rub it, zigzag over it, and then take your paper towel and alla. It's gone. Let's do our orange slices now, and for these, I will be using brown where's my brown. Burnt sienna, Vandyke brown, and then we've got Cadmum orange hue. I'm also going to have a little bit of vermilion handy on the side. Let's see if we end up using it or not. Now, for our initial circle around the edges, we're going to be using the burnt sienna. I'm going to get some of the burnt sienna. Again, I'm using my number three heritage, and we're just going to get a loose circle happening along the edges. I'm trying to make it as watery as possible because we want to have a little bit of blending happening between that outer edge and then where it comes to meet in the center. What I'm doing now is washing off my brush and then with a damp brush, I'm going around and almost blending it into that second line that we have happening. I'm also leaving a little bit of white space there or trying to keeping up with our whole loose effect. Now this is great. I like how it's blending in. I'm going to go back in again this time, get some of that color directly from the color cake and we're dropping that in right on the edges. This is going to give us some nice contrast. Beautiful. Now, leftover color that we have here really watered down we're going to start painting these in. Actually, you know what, too light. Let's get some of the cadmm red hue. Did I say cadm red? No. Cadmum orange hue and drop that into this mix because now we can get a nice loose orangy hue for this. Dropping it in, I'm starting from that center and I'm pulling out, closing up that semicircle or arc at the bottom, leaving as much white space as I can in between. And you can turn your sheet around for best results or convenient painting. Make sure your hand doesn't go over any of your other objects. I'm going to have to just put it back this way and finish Notice the white space again. As I'm painting, I'm leaving the center all white and I'm not painting my triangular shapes completely. We're leaving white space. That's beautiful. I love it. What we're doing next is getting some of that burned CNA mixing it in here, getting some of the Cadmum orange, mixing that in here. We want a medium dark orange happening and we're dropping that in before things dry up. We're adding little lines starting from the center going outward. This portion of color is dark, you're using more color less water for your mix. Then I'm just dropping in more color right in the center. When you add more color in an area that's already damp, you get that beautiful dark to light effect, which is what we're looking for in the orange and I'm just dropping a couple of strokes around our orange as well. And we are done. 9. Painting - Part 5: Okay, so our beautiful base for our present is all dried up, so now we can go in and add some details for the bow and then the little foliage at the top. I love how it's this cute light pink, we're going to go ahead and use some rose matter or you could even use Aasaran. But we're keeping things simple and less colors so that everything ties up nicely. I'm mixing some of my Azaren over here. And we're going to start off with the base. Is Alizarine is more like that color. Dropping some in Same idea, trying to leave a little bit of white space. I'm just going to lightly add these colors or add these strokes throughout the bow area, and then we're going to build up on the layering. Say we go ahead, we can silty our pencil marks. We go ahead, paint this whole area in, and then we are just painting the bow that's on top. The rest of the ribbon, the edges and stuff, we're just going to leave it light. This is what's going to make the bow stand out. This is called layering. And just pull all the color down to the base of the ribbon. Now, layering, depending on how much water you have used, some of you might have a lot of it might still be very damp or wet. I'm starting off from here the edge of the bow and I'm slowly cautiously making my way towards the center. I am looking for those gradient bleeds and that's why I am testing the waters to make sure that these areas are still damp enough to give me that bleed, but not wet where it's just going to get away and just go all over the place. You can see how it slowly built on that. Now we're going to do the center Then I'm doing that flap area of the bow. Perfect. Now, we'll wait for the rest of it to dry up some more before we do the rest of it, and I think we can now move on to doing our pine cone and our pine needles. I'm going to be using the number three again and we're using burnt sienna and I'm using a muted version of the burnt sienna. Again, muted meaning we're doing more water, less color, and building up on that. Starting off with a nice burnt sienna vase, not too much water on my brush because this is tiny. We're starting with two little dabs at the top, very tiny and then lightly going all the way across. Over the painting over the sketch, and we're leaving white space. Make sure you're not touching your bow because you don't want the pink blending into it right away. Then we're going in with a little bit of the van dike and we're going to mix it in with what we have happening here. We want the van **** to be a little bit lighter. That's where we're mixing it in with some of the burn sienna. Notice how I'm dropping it in and it's just moving into the areas where I've added burn sienna. We're going to let this sit for a while. I've taken away, I've not painted in all our white space. We want to have that white space. This is what gives us that beautiful depth to our little loose elements. For the greens, we're going to use the same green that we had mixed here. So that was some of our hookers green, and I want to mix it in with some vandyke this time. And here we go. So getting more color, less water. This is more of an 80, 20% mixture. I'm getting Vandyke brown on the tip of my brush, and we're going to start off with doing the spine and then we're lightly going to graze and create the needles. There we go. Dipping to get a little bit more green. I'm going to lightly graze. You can build on it however much you want. I'm going to leave it at that. I don't want to overwork it too much, but I will drop in some green at the base here to build up on that nice depth. Make sure your pine cone is not super wet, otherwise the green is going to go into it immediately. Here's my next one. I'm going to add more of that green right there. I'm just using the tip of the brush, it's a very light gray. The water and the color is pretty much doing all the work at this point. Then I know we have one more, so I'm going to get some more of this Vandyke brown on the tip of my brush, and that is because if I'm creating another one right here, I want to make sure the color is slightly darker so it doesn't blend in and become a part of this one. Here we go. And we are almost done. 10. Painting - Part 6: So the last thing we're doing is touching up our bow, getting my clean damp brush, I'm going to get some of the rose matter hue and we are going to paint the base of this. Now, feel free to get make a darker version of this, and for that, you're using a little bit of the Vandyke brown. I mixed it in with the glitter that I had and so it's giving me a glittery effect. It's giving glitter, as my kids would say. I'm going to touch up the edges of the bow. Perfect. Then last but not least because it ended up being a very contrasting difference between the bow here and there, we're adding a little bit of this color along the edges. O. A little ended up being a lot. But I'm still going to try and make sure it's not. It won't be as dark as what we have at the top. We're okay. It'll be close enough. Great. That is it. Oh, we need to just fix up this at the edge here. What I'm going to do is add some of the green to overlap. And cover that up. Now, I know I've been saying last but not least last but not least, but this is dried up and it's giving me a nice blend. You could totally leave it as is, but I'm going to get some of my van **** brown and just do a couple of dabs within just to create a little bit more depth. Now I'm going to leave this and we are done our present. 11. Painting - Part 7: All right. Let's now tackle the mistletoe Berry bit in the center here. Again, we're keeping colors similar, so I'm going to be using my rose matter. We're starting off by painting these berries and we're keeping the circle in the center white. Again, feel free to get some color, then add some water on your brush and then complete the full covering or the coloring in of the berries. This is what just gives you those beautiful different hues happening in your painting. The elements will look varied in terms of hue of the color. I'm taking more of that dark color and I'm just dropping it in the center here where all three berries touch. Also adding a little bit around the edge here to perfect that shape, let's continue doing this until we are satisfied. Now, at this point, I just want to encourage and give some ideas. If you wanted to blend in some metallics in your berries just to make them look more shiny maybe, have a little bit of glitter in them, you could totally do that. I think that's a great idea. So these are what the berries look like for us. We're going to wait for this to dry a bit before we can add anything else. We're now going to go on and do the leaves. For the leaves, I've already mentioned, I like mixing some of my hookers green with the burnt sienna. So that's what I'm going to do to get a little bit more mixed up over here on the side. And the leaves too just like the berries. You can feel free to just go in and add some metallic to it if you want. What I will do is, I'll make these leaves in green, and then the ones that are on the outskirts here, to add we're going to do them in glitter or in metallic rather. Nothing much to this painting. We're just going with the flow and painting the base drawing to give us some beautiful foliage. Just like previous with the berries, you can drop in more color at the base, so we get that nice dark to light effect. Then I'm turning this sheet over to paint on this side. Now, just like with all the other paintings we've done this far, make sure if your berries are still damp, you're not touching your green there. Be extra diligent. Pause the video, pause your breathing, whatever you need to get those intricate little details in or get the strokes in because I know sometimes I stop talking like I just did just to get a stroke in. That's absolutely normal. Take your time and go about doing this. This is the last one for me. This is super simple. Nothing much to it. We're just going with it. I got a little bit of water on my brush and I'm using that to extend the green and create the rest or paint in the rest of this mistletoe leaf. Is it mistletoe or holly? I think this is holly. I always get the two mixed up. Dropping in more color at the base. There we go. Now we can do the other leaves. Now, I was saying we can do it in green, but the green that I have here is called Vivid, and I think it might be a little bit too close. Let's just see. It'll still shimmer and shine in comparison to the other ones, but, you know, here we go. Starting here. Yeah. It's similar ish in color. I have maybe if you wanted to do gold, that would work as well. What I'll do is I'll do one in that and then I'm going to switch the color around. The rest, I think I will do in pineapple because a pineapple gives it's a nice gold or actually, you know what? I'm switching. I'm going to switch it to hibiscus, which is a golden pink color. I think it might go quite well with the green and also the red that we have happening. That's what I'm going to do. When you activate these colors, it takes a little bit of time to really get those shimmer and shine mixed in on your brush nicely. Make sure you take your time. It's like the nail polish. When you get those glitter nail polishes, you really need to mix things up to make sure you get a good portion of the shimmer when you add stuff. Okay, so this is exactly what I wanted, and I like how this has turned out. I think it's a great contrast in comparison to the greens. I'm going to add a little bit on this green that we had done here. Let me do one more. I think I can do one more here. Hopefully, it's not damp, and then we are almost finished. I'm just going to extend extend. Make sure you get into those nooks and crannies using the tip of your brush. It's a lot of grazing with this brush. That's what gives us those beautiful results. A little bit more here. Although I'm iffy about doing any more on this side just because I feel, we need to leave a little bit of white space. I closed up all my white space. Plan B, just go with the flow and paint the whole thing, and then we'll figure it out after. There we go. I'm pushing all the color or all the glitter up to the top. Then let's do the last one we have here. And then we are almost finished this little portion of it. So hold on. Let's continue. Just keep painting that edge in there, and I think we got all of it. I'm actually going to mix some of the van **** brown in with the green and we'll get a darker green to go in and add some details. Add that nice little stem happening in the center for it, and then the little veins coming out. I got some of that going into the glitter by mistake. But it's very minuscule, so I'm not going to stress too much about it. All of them don't have to look exactly alike. I'm okay with this one being a little bit extra dark. We've got some texture happening there, that's great. Now let's do a little bit on the berries. Now for the berries, mixing some of that Vandyke brown in with the red. To get a nice dark dark red. What we're going to do is we're going to go in here and add make this one a darker looking berry and this is just going to give it that nice shadowy effect. Adding a little bit more of that over here and a little bit over here on this side too. 12. Painting - Part 8: So now let's paint our candy cane over here. For this, I'm going to use some of the liquid acrylic by Daleron. I feel like it's such a fabulous pearl white that we can use in lieu of having the white stripes on this. I have a little bit of that added over here on my palette, and I'm using the number three, a clean damp number three, and I'm getting some of this. We're going to start off by painting the alternate stripes. I've got one there. We're adding another one here. This is also very straightforward like some of the other well, the mistletoe flower bunch that we just painted. I'm just alternating. Again, this is a great shimmer and shine that I've used for white areas, especially snow. If it's a winter scene, it just adds so much decadence subtle decadence, I should say, to your artwork, especially if it's cards and such. Okay, once this dries up, we're going to go in with our red and we've been using the rose matter, and then we're going to alternate that and it's going to look fabulous. So now most of it has dried up and we're going to go back in and get some of that red and paint the alternate little stripes. Here we go still using my number three because it gives me that nice fine pointed edge. We're going in and taking our time to just paint these areas. I'm not going to bother with leaving any white space for this. I think it's pretty self explanatory. It's a simpler element, so we are just painting the whole thing. Okay. This exercise is great practice for your brush control as well just because it requires a little bit of control when it comes to painting these areas in with something really practicing using just the tip of your brush to paint an area in as opposed to the regular pressing down. Great exercise. And we're almost done. Now, if you like to add a little bit more, what's the word I'm looking for, detailing, you can go in with a darker color and just outline just the edges and that will give it that shadowy effect or like I mentioned, it's just a simple painting, we missed a little corner right here. You don't really need to get too technical. Perfect. And we are done our candy cane. 13. Painting - Part 9: So I think now is a good time for us to get back to our bubbles. And what I'm thinking of doing is getting some of our pineapple glitter. So activating that. And what we can do is we can just keep things very simple and add polka dots to one and stripes to another. So I'm just going to do this across. And then this way, I'm not trying to figure out and even things out. I have a pattern happening. Make sure you brush doesn't fall. I almost feel like my brush is loosely held in my hand. There we go. We've got some nice polka dots happening on this one. Very simple yet elegant. Now for this one here, we can just do lines. Now, feel free to go this way if you want. You could also just keep it simple and just do one or two lines across. You know what? Maybe let's do that. That might be nicer. No, you know what? Let's go with the original my original idea, which is adding lines across this way. The reason I picked this is because we're just mimicking the shape that we have for this already. We're not trying to make things look even or recreating something that needs eyeballing. I wanted to keep it simple and that's why I'm like, let's do this. Now, my only comment would be, I feel like this brush is still a little bit too thick when it comes to applying glitter like this. I possibly could have gone with a smaller brush. I'm adding one on the outskirts too. Love how beautiful this shine makes something as simple as lines on this element. Beautiful. Here we go. This is what that looks like. So let's allow this to dry, and then we will continue painting. 14. Painting - Part 10: The next thing we're going to paint is a little kettle at the bottom here. And so, again, I'm going to continue using my number three because it's fine pointed tip. It's beautiful for all these tiny details we have happening here. And I'll be mixing a little bit of the burnt sienna and we're going to get a very muted watered down version of this to do our background, and then we're going to build and add some nice traditional looking details within. We'll do a nice water down wash. I think I got about 3% color, maybe even 5% color, and then the rest is all water and we're going to lightly graze and just pretty much roughly color this whole area in. I'm going to get a little bit more color happening in here. It's almost like an orangy hue. I don't mind this. You can also use the vandyke brown. Actually, I'm going to have a little bit of vandyke brown in there just to give us some more brownish looking details. I'm just dropping this color in around the edges. And just a little bit below here under our flowering details. So it doesn't look too orange, but we're able to get some nice organic yellowish kind of tones to it. Now for the base, I'm going to do a nice hard dark color, the vandyke brown. I'm just getting some of that color directly from here. I'm going to turn the sideways because I find it easier to paint at an angle. Again, remember the top portion is still damp, try not to get this layer touching that as you're painting. Otherwise, the color is just going to seep into it. Unless you're looking for that effect, then of course, go for it. We got that. I'm going to get a little bit more of the color because I forgot to do the spout. And again, just like a rough coverage of this. And then let's do a little bit more of the burnt sienna. I'm just dropping some at the top here and pulling it down. I'm adding a little bit more down here. Okay. And then now let's add some color to our top there, and I'm thinking, let's make it nice and festive. So let's go all in on our matter red and drop that in right here. I'm just getting water from my cup and adding that to our nice dark red. We're gonna get a little bit more of where's the red? Oh, it's right here. And drop that in here. Then finally, for our little circle at the top, I think if we just keep it with red, that should work. I'm just adding a little bit more of that here. But I'm going to carve out tiny little spot at the top to leave that open, so it looks like reflection and a little bit of a cherry effect happening there. Getting more of this color and mixing it in with some of the Vandyk brown to get a darker version of it. I'm just dropping a whole bunch of color right here. And a little bit to the side. Great. Now, because we've got this color going already, let's go ahead and paint some of our berries happening here. Again, for the berries, too, we're just leaving a little bit of white space. To have a little bit of reflection, which also helps us continue to achieve that beautiful loose effect throughout our painting. Then from here, let's use, we're going to wait for that to dry and have the same Vandyke brown here reflected at the top. But we can absolutely go ahead and get some green to add for our leaves. Then we've got more berries happening out there, which I think would be nice in a ruby. I got some of my green and again, make sure that areas are nice and dry before you attempt to do this just in case, um, there's any seepage. We don't want some wet on wet effects happening over here. Continue on. Just make sure that things are not damp. And, in fact, if you wanted to get a little bit of the Vandyke brown in just to highlight those darker bits, just drop that in right now. And I think we've only got the three leaves happening here. Um, for our additional berries, like I mentioned, let's get a nice metallic. I'm going to use the ruby and mix that up real nice. I'm just dropping that in. Let's start off with these guys here because there's nothing damp in this area. You could even go gold if you want it. I think that would also be a nice little addition and making things pop. I think that's good, let it dry and then we're going to go in and add some of the details like the stems. But in the meantime, let's handle the actual handle. For the handle itself, I was thinking, let's make it. Let's make it green. I'm going to use my leftover green. Then for that portion right there at the top, we'll switch back to the Vandyke brown. Here we go. Again, even with the handle, if you wanted to make it more of a metallic, just to give these tiny elements of shine happening, that also works. I think that would be a nice little alternative if you really like metallics. Now I'm also keeping in mind that we will be combining some of these elements in different cards. So I want to have a little bit happening here and there. I'm being a little bit intentional in how much metallic I put in. Okay. So we are now getting some of the Vandyk brown and moving on to doing our top portion right here. So most of it has dried up. I'm just going to roughly go in and paint this in I'm just also going to turn the sideways because it's easier for me to manage. I encourage you to move your sheet around if you have better access or more comfortable painting it at an angle or in a certain direction. You do not have to keep it standard facing you and try and wiggle your hand in different angles to get it. You can always turn your sheet as well. Getting a little bit more of this color here and we're dropping it in Again, in this corner and I want to just get some nice variations of brown to give it more of that in depth feeling. Adding a little bit of depth. Also adding some strokes at the bottom here, again, giving it more depth. And then last but not least, let's add that little line at the top as well, leaving a little bit of white space in between the red and the brown. Then one more thing is adding the stems. I'm going to continue using this color. I'm just painting in lightly grazing to get my nice fine pointed stems. I think these also were attached to stems. And this one right here, You know what? We can add. I'm going to fill it up with little strokes here. It can look as if there's some other element happening in there. Okay, this was totally me going on a whim and making things happen because it's so tiny, but then we've got all these colors that kind of blend in nicely. I don't know what that's going to be, but I think it kind of goes. So we're going to leave that as is. And then I like how things are happening here, but I just want to add a little bit more depth to that area. So I'm mixing in some of the Vandyk brown in with the burnt sienna. I want to just highlight this area right here to kind of give it more um, more depth. Trying to find a better word, another word instead of depth because I feel like I've used it so much. But, yeah, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to add depth by layering. Okay. And so this part is done. Gonna let this dry up. 15. Painting - Part 11: Next up, we're going to do our candles, and for the candles, we're going to start with doing our flour, and then, actually, let's do the candles first because I have some of the burnt sienna already. So just that water down version that we used for our kettle, we're going to go ahead and paint the candles in a bit. And again, you can just do it roughly. We want to keep this looking like they are white candles. While I'm roughly adding this color in, it is so light. When we go in with the details on top, it's going to still show through. Sorry, I won't show through, so the details will stand out quite a bit. And uh it's just a light glaze of color. That we're doing to give it that nice illustrative look. Now, the centers of these candles at the top, you can add more color in there, so they stand out a bit more in comparison to the rest. I find that works nicely. You get a little bit more of that and drop that in here, dropping that in here at the top as well. I'm just letting that sit that way. We're going to see how that dries up. Then with a clean damp brush, I'm pulling all the excess color and just painting in the rest. But notice how I've left tons of white space as well. Don't worry too much about that for now. We're just going to allow this to sit. And dry up nicely, and we're tackling the rest. So for the center of this one here, we're going to do a very similar color color palette to the poinsettia that we're going to be doing. So I'm starting off with my yellow ochre, and I'm just going to dot that in like so, I'm leaving a little bit of open white space there. Then without further ado, we're just going to take some I was contemplating between vermilion and Azaran. But I think I'm going to be adventurous and try to mix both and see what we get. I'm getting some of my Azaran I'm going to do a new technique for you guys. I'm just going to add some color here. Not exactly a new technique, but I'm showing you a different method to getting your painting or your flower in washing my brush, and I've dabbed this on paper towel and I'm pulling and extending the color from here. Now, because I waited a little while, some of this might be dried up already, but I don't mind that because then it's going to give me that nice dark to light effect for some of them, not all of them. So we're going to see how that works, and then I'm going to go back in and add more color just to create more depth. So it looks like all of them blended in quite nicely. I'm not getting any hard edges. This is also really good paper, by the way, so I can't really complain there. But I'm going to take some of the color directly from here and I'm dropping that in right in the center. Because I'm dropping it in the center right now, it's blooming into the rest of it, giving me some nice dark to lights. Then I'm also pulling some color out into the petals. The reason being is it's giving me nice shadowy effects and adding more depth features to this because it's still damp, so it's giving me a nice smooth transition. Now, I'm not fully washed off my brush, but I'm going to take some of this vermilion. Let's see where this goes and I'm going to skirt around here and add and paint the other petals in. I'm not worrying too much about all the details in terms of touching the inner petals because my lay off color was fairly dry. So I know even if it touches, it's not going to be a super intense blend or a mix. I've got a little bit of that happening in the candle. You can see that blooming in there. Again, I don't wholly mind that. But you all know already if you've been following along for a while now, the easiest way to get rid of that is take a clean brush and blend it out. Alzarin and vermilion together look phenomenal. It's one of my favorite color combos, which is why I was very tempted to try it here. So before the orange gets too much in there, I'm blending it out. And now we can build up on this, but we can also let it dry a bit before going back in, mixing either the Alizarin or the vermilion in with some Vandyke brand to get a slightly darker tone and just highlight those areas. But let's go ahead and do the leaves first. I'm going to be using my holographic vivid number 12 color to paint these large leaves. This is going to be the area that is metallic and shimmery. I could have also made this a really nice dark green by just adding some Vandyck brown in it, and then the flour would have popped a lot more. Just a thought after the fact. Okay, and there's one more at the top. Okay, that's done. So for the berries, I'm going to mix some of the saran in with my Vandyk brown. And I want a darker tone berry. I was thinking about doing the berries in a yellow ochre, but then I thought, we've got a flame happening, which is going to be yellow and we have the center of the flower which is yellow. So let's not overthink this and go with a nice dark wine red for our berries. Like we've been painting the other berries, I'm leaving a little bit of white space at the top. And this is what's gonna give our painting a nice pop. We've got some of that red seeping into the green there. And then I'm going to get a little bit more mix that in. Add it right here. And then in this area here now, this is a little bit tricky because I know the green is a little bit damp still. It's not too bad. Then I'm washing off my brush, rubbing it onto paper towel and then I'm just going to lightly push this color back up. Then once it's dried, I can always go back in with more of the green and solidify that area. But this is just different techniques of how you can go around doing things. Then adding some more of that light background color here. A little bit in between here because there's nothing else. So it's just going to be the stem that's going to be painted in there, so one fine little detail. That's why I added that in there. And then Now we can add a little bit more darker details to our flour. What I'm going to do for this is I'll just use the one color, and that is using Vandyke brown mixed in with some of my Azaran it gives us that nice dark red, as you can see from our berries. What I'm going to do is just add a little bit of underlining strokes below here. So it looks like a shadow for our flowers. And then just a little bit at the top. And then washing off my brush and making sure it's just damp and doesn't have too much water, I'm just going to lightly blend this color in the background. And that's perfect. Last but not least, actually, I don't know if this is last but not least. I have to look at it again. But I want to go in and just add little tiny strokes in the center of this flower to really deepen that center so the eye goes there. So using that Nas Azaran mixed in with some of our Vandyke brown, I created that dark tone, and that's what I'm using to drop in the center. Okay, so one last thing we need to do, actually two last things is the tiny leafy stems. Okay, no, three. I light. We've got the leaves, we've got the stems, and then we've got the flames. So for the leaves, I really like the idea of using really dark green, something that's darker than this right here. And so we're going to use Hooker's green mixed in with Vandyke brown. And we've got a nice dark dark dark green, and then we can use the same color to add our stems over there. So here we go, lightly grazing and then using the tip, we're painting in our leaves. Make sure your brush doesn't fall because mine almost did. Perfect. I had to hold my breath for that one, guys. Here's my just dropping in some of this green in here, so it just blooms. I meant to do a stem, but the area was damp, so it just went all over. And because it's such a tiny spot, I was okay with that. Lightly grazing to add stems on those guys. Then I'm adding the leaves. Perfect. So now, like I mentioned, we are doing the flame and for the flame, I'm going to use my yellow ochre. Just doing that. Then I'm going to get I think this area is dried up. I'm taking that vivid green again and I'm going in this area and covering up our fopa or my fopa I'm even going to skirt around these berries because that green blended all over. I can just look like this leaf is right behind it and it's sitting quite nicely on top of this leaf. Great. So that's it for that. I like how this has turned out. I'm going to add one more little thing, and that is just adding a stroke of that nice blended, what's the color, burnt sienna, just to kind of give a little bit of a shadowy effect here and kind of really differentiate the two candles that we have. And that's it for our Oh, no, one more. One more. One more thing, and then I promise we're done. We need to do the candle wick. So I'm using Vandyke brown and just adding little stems or little lines rather for our candle wick, and we are done. 16. Painting - Part 12: So we're now going to be painting our little stocking and I'm bringing back the Daleroni liquid acrylic in the white pearl. And what we're going to do is instead of leaving these guys white, I'm going to be painting them in this beautiful acrylic, so I'm getting some more color on here. I've shaken the bottle to make sure all the metallic is nicely dispersed. With a damp brush, I am mixing some of this color and I'm just going to lightly make sure there's not too much water on it. Then we are painting this in. Now, ideally, I would have loved to give the edges a little bit of some zig zag organic looking for texture. But because we're going to be cutting these out, I'm just going to leave this as is and simplify our whole process. Because these are tiny elements and these are ultimately going to be cut, I want to be able to make my life easier as well while cutting, we're going to just keep things simple and fight that urge to add more details. That's that. I've washed it off. Now for this portion of it, again, we're trying to tie in the colors so that we can mix and match items in our cards. So we want to keep the colors along the same line or route. We've got a lot of pinks and reds. I think it's best to go with a green for this one. For this, I'm going to use, we've got a present that's fully metallic. I think this one should be we're not going to go fully metallic here, but I'm going to mix some of the hookers green in and let's get some of the van **** brown and we're going to do that whole wet on wet technique with this one, we'll dampen the base, and then we're going to allow drop in the color. Here's my color. It's like a nice dark green, and I'm going to use the number eight to dampen this area. Feel free to use the number six or number three, whichever floats your boat and I'm just dropping in water. I'm dampening this whole inner area here. And I'm sure I'm going over it multiple times just to make sure that it's properly dampened it helps to have 100% cotton paper because this is where your areas remain damp longer. If it's not 100% cotton, you might be fighting against time to make it in there before things dry up so you can see that beautiful natural watercolor bloom. So, just be mindful of that when you're doing this. I'm almost done dampening this and I'm going to be dropping the color in shortly. Here we go. I already had the color ready on here, so I'm just going to drop it in. Sometimes you need to do larger strokes to really see that flow in. That's what I'm going to be doing. Because I can tell that yes, my area is damp, but I have a lot of water kind of just sitting on top too, which I would typically call pooling. And so it's giving me a nice bloom, but it's not kind of dispersing all over without me having to push it around. Going to get more color, drop that in and look how pretty that is. You can go however dark you want and you can decide where you want the dark color to be. I know I'm covering up all our our little background details, but my idea was to go in with a metallic or a gold, maybe the pineapple and just add those details in using our nice number three brush. But I'm loving this silver with this dark green. It's a beautiful contrast. We are dropping more right below in these shadowy areas. Yay. 17. Painting - Part 13: We're going to give this a little bit of time to dry up. I got a little bit of green running into the foot of the toe area of our stocking, but we're going to fix that up once it's dried up. In the meantime, let's tackle this little cone here. I'll be using my number four for this, and we're going to be using two colors, the burnt sienna and Vandyke brown. I'm getting some of my vandyke brown. I'm going to mix it in my palette. I want to mix a little bit of the burnt sienna in just to get a slightly different variation of brown. We're going to start off with something like this. I'm starting in 30, 70 percentage mixtures of 30% color, 70% water. Actually, let's get a little bit more. I want it to be a little bit brighter, like a orangey brown. We're starting off by painting our three little strokes at the top. Throughout these, we're making sure we've got ample enough white space. As we're going lower, notice how I'm lightly grazing. We want that shape where it's pointed at the top and then wide at the bottom. The little shapes that I have drawn in are meant to be more of a guide on where you can roughly add this first layer of color. When I say rough, I mean, you're not painting every little nook and cranny, but you can see how I'm leaving a little bit of white space here. Same thing at the bottom. You're almost creating a frill at the bottom here. And then we're tapering back inward as we go to the very end. This is this and now we're going to get some color directly from our vandyk brown and I'm dropping that in right in the center here, and then I'm adding a couple of strokes at the base. Of each layer. This is what gives it that beautiful loose cone look because you get the idea right away when you look at it, your eye knows or your brain knows exactly what your eyes are looking at, and that's the beauty of loose watercolor. Less strokes and where your brain is giving the colors are speaking for themselves. That is our cone. Simple enough. Easy enough. Okay. 18. Painting - Part 14: Our stocking is still drying up, let's move on to our nice hot drink here, we're going to start off with painting the little cinnamon sticks at the top. I'm going to use the leftover color we have from painting our pine cone and dropping I'm just painting these sticks in. Now obviously because they're overlapping one another, I'm leaving a little bit of white space and we'll definitely go in with one more layer to intensify the shadowy area so that they you can tell that there's two of them overlapping for lack of a better way of describing it. Now for the rest of the cup, let's add a little bit of detail. Using the same colors that we've been using so far, you pretty much you've caught the gist of things. We're going to I really like the idea of continuing using our DaleroniPearl white for the white creamy area. The rest of it can be a nice brighter shade. We'll fluctuate between red and green and for the reds, I'll do the matter rose. That's been our dominant. Actually, you know what? Let's use the vermilion and then the regular green that we've been mixing. Vermilion because we've got some of that in the flour, but I don't have it anywhere else. Just painting this in if this was a larger cup, we could have done a lot more in terms of adding some nice hues or trying to get some nice bleeds happening with the color. But because this is so tiny, I feel like it's not really worth all that effort, especially because we're going to be adding multiples of these together in a card. This is our first layer. Let's do the next layer. The next one this one can be white and we'll have some green stuff on it. This one can be green. Then let's make this bottom portion red. Perfect. Allow this to dry a bit. I think the handle can be in a nice glittery color, maybe. Let's see. Let's go to the green. Getting some of my green mixed up because I've run out a little bit then be very careful how you're doing this because we want to make sure we've got enough space. I'm just going to do green here and we'll leave the top and bottom portion white. Unless I mess up in my painting, then everything is gonna be green. That's also part of going with the flow, guys. Yeah. I think I like it. I wish I perfected my little peaks better, but we're okay with it. Okay, now I'm going to get some of my pineapple, and we're going to add a little bit of pineapple in there. So I'm going to use this for the handle, first and foremost. So getting some of that on here. Paint this in. Now, depending on how good you are in cutting, you can even thicken the width of the handle just so that it's easier when you're cutting. I'll leave that up to you to decide. And then over here, I'm just adding this line in. Then we're going to do the little dots on top in maybe in the dark green or maybe even in the Vandyke brown. I've not quite decided yet. But either should work. We just want to get that idea of glitter going on. Perfect. Now let's add some of the pearlescent white to the top. In fact, we don't have to be painting the whole thing in parlescent. You can actually just add hints of things. Again, I think it's a preference if you would prefer to just stop stressing and just do the whole thing in it. Let me see where it takes me. I'm adding these little flakes not flakes, strokes of color. And I'm kind of not painting the whole thing in, but adding it here and there. Okay. I'm leaving mine like so you can see, and then we'll let that dry and see how the rest of it goes. But in the meantime, let's go back in back to our cinnamon sticks and I'm adding in one more layer for this guy in the forefront just so he stands out a bit more. Oops. Now we have chocolate sprinkles happening. On our yeah, this is what it means to go with the flow guys. It little strokes happen that were not meant to be, here we go. We suddenly have chocolate sprinkles. We do not stress. A lot about art is going with the flow and just kind of rolling with the punches, so to speak, and this is what we're doing here. We got a little bit of chocolate sprinkles happening. Leaving it at that. So we'll let this dry and then do our little dots and we should be done. 19. Painting - Part 15: So our stocking has finally dried. I can't quite see the base drawings for the snowflakes, but I'm going to be using the white white perscent aqua liquid acrylics. That's what I was trying to say. We're going to create very lightly, we're adding these lines in, so it's like a cross and then an X within it. And then I'm just going to do dots all at the end of these guys. That's mainly because I know if I try to add any extensions to it, it might not work. My brush is thin, but I don't think it'll be super thin. It would be nice to do this with a pen with a nice fine point maybe. I'm going to create another one here. A little cross and then criss cross, and then we're adding the dots on the edges or the ends of it. Keeping things simple yet fun. Criss cross, and then adding your little dots on the side. Then obviously, just do little polka dots to fill up the space and make it more jovial and fun. I might just even add some details in the pineapple, which is a goldish color, and that might be nice little fun thing to it. Adding some of my green to this area at the bottom here, actually not green. We're supposed to add more of the white to cover up that little smudge. Because I just need a very little bit of it, I'm just going to take some adding any more to my palette. And it's kind of like a rough cover up, but we'll see how this dries up. And our little stocking is done. 20. Painting - Part 16: Taking a quick pause to admire what we have painted so far. We've got two more left and then we should be done. Now it's time to do our last two. We're going to be focusing first on the cute little gingerbread guy. If you've been thinking about what base colors we're going to be using based on all the colors we've used thus far, you are correct. We'll be using a mixture of burn Sienna because Burn Sienna by itself is a little bit too orange. We're going to be using burn sienna mixed in with a little bit of Vandyke brown or actually, Yeah, I'm definitely going to be using a little bit of Vandyke brown in it. I pause there for a moment thinking, maybe you could get away with using burn Sienna, but I'm not feeling the intense orange look, I would prefer mixing it in with a little bit of the van **** brown as I'm doing right here. And just getting that nice chocolate milk chocolate color and then we'll start painting this end. Now, watering it down a lot because we're going to be layering as we have been since the beginning over here. I'm using my number three. In fact, it would make more sense to use the number four, but let's stick with number three. Indecisiveness here and that's mainly because I want these little squiggly bits of icing to remain white. That's where I paused and I decided let's continue using number three. Number four would work really well too. It's just this would be a lot easier and I already had it on hand, why not? Now, same thing with this one. If you wanted to start by dampening the area first and then going in with color, you can totally do that as opposed to doing it the way I am doing it right now. It really is a matter of preference. I started doing it this way. You can also carry on or do it the alternative way. If you like those nice beautiful bleeds and blends, it's easier to achieve doing it the alternative way. Especially if you want to take your time. I'm dropping in more of the color as I go along, especially in these areas here where I know it should be a little bit browner in comparison to some of the other areas. Then washing of my brush, I'm just going to take water on it and blend these out. This is me doing half of this in proper wet on dry, and then the rest of it I'm doing wet on wet. I'm moving quickly, as you can see because I do not want to get any hard edges here, and I'm moving the color around as well. Then getting more of this color, I'm dropping it in in these key areas here around the edges. Then allowing it to seep in. Now using what we have left over, blend in some here and there, and then complete the edges or the hands. I've not left any real intentional white space this time, but you should, if you can, All right, so that's done. Let's do our little feet. I managed to keep our little icing areas white, so I'm happy about that. So there's a little bit of white space right there. Take your time doing these areas just to make sure you're pleased with it and you're getting it to your satisfaction. Oh, last but not least, we got to do a head as well. Let's go for it right away. If you end up I guess painting over the eyes for whatever reason, a solution would be using white gouache or if you have a white Posca pen, that also works, or if you've got the acrylics, the DaleronePerlescen acrylics, I would try using the white for some nice glistening pearly white eyes, just a thought. Or if you're really steady and your hand is really good in making sure you get just the right areas void of color, then go for it. Okay, not bad, considering. Okay, so I'm going to get a little bit more of the color just to kind of intensify some of these areas. As I had mentioned, so I'm going to drop some here. But the thing is, when you're dropping color on an area that's damp and has considerable amount of dampness still, you want to make sure your brush has less water, more color so that it's just the color that sticks on and you're not dropping in more water. I want to add these darker tones more at at the base of the bow, for example, maybe a little bit at the top, a little bit to the side. And then we should be good. 21. Painting - Part 17: Finally dried up and I think it's a safe time to go in and do the bow and the buttons. For this, I'm thinking it would be nice to do some metallic, for the metallics, I am thinking if we did something like we've got enough green, we've got enough that. Let's do a little bit of Jasper so we can have it match some of that happening there. I think the cute little Jasper pink bow would be just cute. Delectably cute. Holding it sideways or positioning the sideways just so it's easier for me. I'm going to start by outlining my bow. I'm being a little extra cautious, even though I know it's dried up. I just want to make extra sure that I am not wrong. What I'm doing is leaving the center white, and then I'm doing lines going outward into the main portion of the bow. I was thinking of leaving a little bit of white space in between these, but I think I covered up most of the white space here, so I'll leave maybe just a little bit on the top here. I might need a little bit more glitter infusion. Then I think for our buttons, the same color or the same metallic. Um, Beautiful. Now for the eyes, we're going to go with the Vandyke brown. I've washed off my brush, going to get some of that vandyke brown, making sure you don't have too much water, make sure you dab your brush onto paper towels, it's just a damp brush, color on the tip of your brush that you are using to draw in the eyes or paint in the eyes. I am leaving a little bit of white space. Cute. Our metallic in the gingerbread guy has dried up and I'm just going to use the leftover brown that we have on a damp brush. I'm using my number three and we're going to add little arcs right below the buttons and also the smile. Also the bow. I think Then once that is done, we are finished our gingerbread guy, doing a little bit on the eyes too. Don't make him look too tired. We're just trying to show a little bit of shadow. That's that. This is what it looks like. And now it is time for our final little painting, and that is the ponsia. Much like we did this flower right there, we're going to start off the Ponseia with the center for the center, I'm using Yellow Ochre using my number three, and I'm starting off by doing little circles within the center portion of this flower. You can do very rough looking circles or you can just do a haphazard dotting for lack of a better way of explaining that. That pretty much means you're going back and forth with your brush, just pressing down the tip, pulling back up, going back down, and roughly covering up the area, but leaving a little bit of white space in there. I'm going to get a little bit of that leftover brown and I'm dropping that in on the outskirts of this. Adding that nice two tone color shade to our center. Now once that's done, this is where you can always fluctuate and move over to your number four, if you wish. I really like that combination of Azaran with vermilion, but I'm still not wholly sure if we should use that combo. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start off with using the vermilion and I'm going to mix some of that on here onto my palette and then take a moment to decide if this is what I want to do. Now I love how vermilion looks. I'm just not entirely sure if this is good for our Pinsia. I'm going to mix some Azaran in with it. I think it'll give us a prettier jewel tone that I think would work. Yes. I really like how this is looking and we're going to start off with using this color that we have made. Mixing the tube. Now, keep in mind, these guys right here with the stem note, the middle veins drawn in, those are leaves and that should be I did that on purpose so you guys would know the petals from the leaves. Take your time painting this in. I went a little bit over the edge for this one here and Enjoy this moment. We want to paint the first set of petals. We're leaving the second set of petals or the background layer for a tad bit later and you'll see why. Now, if your center is damp, just make sure you're not touching it too much. Now I'm going to get a little bit of my Azaran and I'm going to drop that in because I still want there to be a clear distinction between the petals. While they tie in, I also want them to look different. This is my way of creating that difference. Before these dry up, we're going to go in and add a little bit of detail in there. The way to do that is the way I'm doing it is using the back of one of my brushes and I'm going to go in and drawing a line, it is important that this happens while it is damp. Then from that line, I'm extending and creating tiny little veins for our poinsetia. This is such a fabulous way to create texture, create interest in your painting. Look at that. Turning my sheet around, we're going to continue doing the same thing in these other petals. And let's do one more. And finish it off with this tiny one here because we have time. And just like I did the first time, I'm going to drop in some of that Azaran then using the back of our brush or creating those beautiful veins and details within our petals. Now, keep in mind these areas need to be damp for best results. You can get results when they are dried, but it's underwhelming. So if you're looking for really good results, try them both. You can experience how it looks. I feel that experience is the best teacher most times. And when you try things like this, you get a better feel for how you can achieve it and also how you can overcome that if you don't want, if you don't want to see those results, like what to do. That's why I always say experience is the best teacher. This is why I always say, if you want to get good at watercolor, the best way to do it is picking up your brush and painting. So this part's done. Let's get ready to do the bottom. For the bottom, I'm going to mix more of the Azaran in my mixture, and this way, there's a stark difference between the two layers and maybe even mix some of the Vandyke brown in with it. It's a nice dark red. 22. Painting - Part 18: This is where we are very intentionally taking our time and skirting around all these layers that we have happening for this poinsettia. Remember if the top portion of it is damp, just wait for it to dry up before you paint these in for best results. Now, it looks like we just have three petals under I and the rest of them are all leaves, I guess. I'm just dropping in more color for some nice added shadow. We've got one there. Let's do one here. Because this is so close, I'm leaving a little bit of white space in between, a tat bit. Um, I almost feel like there should be one here. I'm actually going to go rogue and create one here just because I feel like this area needs one on this side. Join me as I go rogue and create a petal in here. Now before these dry up, actually should do one up here too. Why not since we're in it? I'm going to do one more here. Now I think we're a little bit more even. Perfect. Do your little textures. But for this, because they're underlining underneath, I don't know if they're wholly important, but do them anyways. They just do add something nice for your end result. Giving you some really nice contrast as well. Perfect. This is what that looks like. Now we're going to get right into painting our leaves. For the leaves, I'm going to use the green. What I'm going to do is mix the green in with the leftover red that we have. I'm using my number three as well, let's start off with the hooker's green, mix it in with this. When you mix red with the green, that also gives you a beautiful compliment. Well, just a really nice contrasting color. Start off with the side that you know is dried. The most. Then again, take your time painting this in. For the leaves as well, we're going to do the same texturing using the back of the brush. It is something that won't I promise it will not make your flower petals look the same as a leaf. In terms of texture, yes, but because of the color difference, it'll just add something really nice. Now, another option and I think I'm going to go with this one is just adding one line your main vein in the leaf and then letting it be, like that. I think I like this. I'm going to leave it this way because I want to keep things still fairly loose or lacking of detail. Another way to do it is if you want to just paint half of your leaf, for instance, leave a little bit of white space and then paint the other half like I'm doing right here. Different ways to show the partition in the leaf. A third way would be you paint the whole thing and instead of using the back of the brush, you can just use a darker color to go in and drop that line in. There's a lot of different ways to do things. It's all about knowing what's at your disposal. I'm dropping in more color at the edges here to give us that nice dark to light effect. I'll leave that one with a little bit of white space so you can have something to see and compare at the end. I'm excited to be finishing this so we can sit down and cut these out and see what they look like. For this one, I'm going to definitely do the middle. Then for the others, what I'm going to do is I'll do a dark one here, and then the rest, I'm going to make it a really light green. In fact, I think I might just use one of the metallics since this flower has none. M. For, let's do a little bit of green here before the metallics. This is a hint of a leaf in the back. Now, time for the metallics I was talking about. I think this was the vivid green that we have and I'm not sure if I'm not sure if the vivid green would stand out as well. Instead, I'm going to use I'm going to use pineapple instead. Pineapple is what we've been using dominantly throughout all of this for our goldish effects. Mixing some of that in here. Let's get some on. Uh, Perfect. And then one more. And I like, again, some of you might have seen this coming, but I like to do things in threes. And so I'm going to do one here. Uh, Perfect. We are done painting the leaves. One last thing that I would do just to give things a little bit more depth is the center. I want to add a little bit of a darker brown around the edges. I mixed a little bit of the vanike brown with the yellow ochre, and I'm going to dot some of that in around the edges. Then just a little bit in the center. Mainly around the edges to really show those um shadowy spots, and then a little bit towards the center. And that is it. We let this dry and then once this is dried up, we're going to start cutting these out so we can add them to our carts. 23. Painting - Part 19: I want to introduce one more thing before we actually get into the whole cutting aspect of things and that's just adding shadows to our simplistic pieces here. Majority of these are are reddish or orangish. Again, we're using the Van **** brown and mixing it in with that base color to get a slightly darker tone, and then we can go in and add a couple of lines. Let's start off with doing this one right here. I'm going to add first and foremost. Let me add the dots that I wanted to add here. That I had said I would add and conveniently didn't. Starting off with that, then I'm going to be mixing some of this color with the vermilion to get a slightly darker hue. Then what I want to do is add some of this to the base to the base over here, just outlining. This is what gives us a nice simple shadowy effect. Perfect. Now, we're going to do the similar thing that we've done here with some of the other components. For instance, I really like this here, and I think we add some of the Azaran mixed in with Sorry, this was Matter Rose. Matter Rose mixed in with the Van ****. For a darker tone like this and then just dropping it on like, pick a side that you wanted to reflect and just paint it in. So I'm just lightly grazing and adding that in. Make more color if you need to. Perfect. We've got some there. Now, because we've used similar colors for this, we can use the same thing here and just add a little bit of outline to these overlapping petals. Good. And then what we're doing is taking that second brush, which is damp, so not a lot of water and we're just going to fade it out smudge it out so we get a nice dark to light effect. Now, it might dry up quickly, in which case, that's okay. It's not a big deal. You can just go back and add a little bit more and then try it again. But don't try it too many times because then it might just not work out well. Then all your hard work. Really makes things pop. Okay, so we've done it there. We've done it here. We've already tackled a little bit on this guy. We've done it over here. So over well, we can leave this one out. A little bit here on our pot. What I'm going to do is get some of my red, and I'm just highlighting certain areas here to kind of make it. Less flat looking. Adding some in the berries as well. The tiny little details do matter. Then I also want to add some of this in the spout. For that, we just need a little bit of the Vandyk brown in with the burnt sienna. I'm just lightly grazing to get a little bit of outlines happening here. And I think this should be fun. I also want to add a little bit of this around these ribbons right here. All I'm doing is just adding almost like an outline to the base of these ribbons. Making them pop. And then we have the ribbon over at the on the Christmas tree pot, as well. This might be a bit too dark, but I'm still going with it just to see where this takes us because I like how it's lifting it up for me. I do want to enhance this ribbon a bit as well because I feel like it could have looked a tad bit better with a darker tone. Okay. And then I do feel we need a little bit of that happening for our oranges as well. But it would be lovely to also see some detail in the oranges using some of the metallics. I know we've got and I think the go to would be using something like this. But in addition to this, you can also use your graphic pen. We could use a graphic pen and get a little bit of detail. I'm contemplating that, but we'll see. Let me add a little bit of the pineapple first. And all I'm doing is adding very faint lines, non all around just in certain places. I want it to be just subtle so that when people are looking at this, they can see a little glisten and then they have to really look to see where it is. Being very random, in the lines leading up to the center here, creating that beautiful, attractive showstopping effect. I like how it's kind of just shining out from the center. It's beautiful. I love effects like this. There we go. 24. Painting - Part 20: So now comes the fun part. I have gone ahead and cut out these cute little paintings of ours, and now we're essentially teaming up the ones that we want to go together. So what I would suggest is having a little bit of variety in terms of having some glittery with a little bit of not so much glitter, pinks with pink. So for instance, I think these guys would go together quite nicely. And I might add more to it over here, because we use vermilion here, this was literally the only one that had it. I figured let's team it up with our cute little stocking and this pine cone. I think these three go together quite nicely as well. So, feel free to mix and match what you think is good. Then the next thing we're going to be doing is pasting these onto our cards. Now, for that, we've got a couple of options. You can absolutely use colored paper if you have any of that and you can make a card from that. For instance, I've got this whole stack that I got off Amazon and they've got some really nice whites that even have black. I'm going to use a black for one of these. Then for the next part of the card, I'll do about two or three cards. For the next cards, I'm going to be using my Strat More watercolor cards. So these are 3.5 " by 4 ", and they come with envelopes as well. So I'm going to do both of these, and we are going to set those up together. Figure out which ones you want to go and then hop back on to assemble them. Just notice, look how cute the flap of these envelopes are that come with it. I love it. I'll be doing a couple of these, and then I cut up my sheet of black paper, and I found these really nice envelopes, fancy envelopes that I had, these work perfectly. So we'll be doing some of these, some of these, and then to glue these on here, I'll be I'm warming up my glue gun. Then if we end up doing any kind of writing on this, feel free to get your graphic pens. I have a set of etcher pens, but you can also use Karen brush markers, and I've got two sets of them. So depending on where I want to use it, I might end up using the metallic. I think it would look really nice on the black, but I've got the regular versions as well. So we're just going to keep all of this handy on the side and see where the flow takes us. 25. Background Painting - Part 1: So after a bit of contemplation, here's what I am deciding to do. So we're going to have some stand alone. They just look super cute and very traditional like like this Christmas tree right here. Then we've got this guy right here. I felt it just looked better to have these guys as a standalone and then for our darker ones, we've got these, which I absolutely think they are such a showstopper just because of the dark background, even something as simple as these orange slices, and then the one that you cannot see, which is off frame is this one right here. I know I said balance out the glitter, but these just look so good together and the stark background with the black and the white and all that glitter looks amazing. Now I want to do one thing that's slightly different for some of these guys here, mainly this one. I want to give this one a background in watercolor. Let's get right on to doing that and then we're going to sit down and glue everything. 26. Background Painting - Part 2: I'm going to do it for these two cards. We're going to add a background to the cards before we glue this on. Using my number eight, and I'm going to be using this gorgeous dark rich green color that's by Paul Rubens, I am going to start mixing a little bit and we're going to do our wet on wet technique. This way, we can get some nice dark colors happening. We're going to be painting these two. I'm using my number eight and mixing some beautiful dark green by Paul Rubens right here, we're going to do the wet on wet technique, we're pretty much going to be dampening our base and then going in and dropping this color. I've got the color mixed, we're going to use two brushes for this. Here's what I'm doing. I'm going to just roughly dampen this area. Just water and make sure you've got enough water on here. Don't be stingy with it, but also do not get too much puddles. Then here's the idea. We're dropping in the color just like so. Now, this is a super rich, beautiful green color. Watch that flow in how stunning is it? Now what you can do is you can hold it all different ways and really blend in. I'm going to be washing off my brush just a little bit. This is a very, very rich, gorgeous color from one of their specialized sets. What I'm going to do is I love the natural blend, but I'm going to still go in and help it be a little uneven, so we get those beautiful organic looking results. I want it to be almost like a dark glow. Okay, same idea that we've done here. We're going to repeat that over here. I'm going to move this aside, allow this to dry, and then we're coming back. So again, same thing, like we did in the first one. I think this time, what I want to do is concentrate it mainly in the center and then allow it to bloom. Look at that. Look at how it is progressing. This time, let me just see if I can do a circle and then allow that to bloom in. Maybe even do a circle just on the outside, leaving a little bit of white space. Have fun with this. This is such a great way to experiment and see all the different effects that watercolor is capable of giving you. Um, never feel like following a tutorial is literally the only way you can do things. The tutorials are there mainly for inspiration and to teach you technique and to get your creative juices flowing. At least that's the whole objective of videos and tutorials when I put them out because you never know art is so there's so much expression. There's so much involved in how you think. Um, and we all think very differently. You might have an idea that I don't. We're going to allow this to dry and then we're going to glue our stuff on it. So again, feel free to move things around and allow this to dry completely before we get to gluing. 27. Crafting - Part 1: We're ready to start gluing our stuff. I really like this by itself too. That's an option if you are looking to use more and make more cards and just be simple. I feel like less is more many of the times so feel free to do that. This is just what I would like to do I want you to figure out your creative likes and this likes during this process and run with it. Run with that intuition. This is how you grow and learn to trust your creative instinct and create. I am literally just adding a dot of glue in the center and then that's it because I don't want to glue down the whole thing. I still want a little bit of lift happening on either side, and this is my way of making sure that's what's going to happen. This one's going to go right underneath it where the gift stays on top and this is underneath. Same thing. I'm just adding a little bit of glue to the center. Then I'm sliding this in and then pressing down. Then we're going to allow this to dry. I'm not sure. I've not decided which ones are going to get writing on it and which ones aren't. But this is cute. We're going to put allow this to dry for a bit. Let's move on to the next one. I'll do all of these first before we tackle the rest. Again, same idea here. Place this one like this because I know they're a little bit they're more elongated than circular, and that was done intentionally just to keep things loose and fun. We go, I like how this is as well. This one can definitely have something here at the bottom. Allowing this one to dry now. Let's move on to this. I will start off with doing our gingerbread guy, place him in the middle. Look how cute this looks good, looks as well if you just leave it alone. Again, preference for what you think works best. Yeah, I just have a very noisy gun here. So sliding that behind because I want him to stand out more. And then this will be a little bit overlapping on his foot. Another thing to keep in mind when you're gluing, you'll find there's areas where it'll give you white space. I didn't want any white space between him and this. I have it all closed up, so it's just the gingerbread foot that's on the background. So there's no more black space that you see in there, so it's covered up. That's just one tip I would mention to keep track of. These are how all the black ones, black cards turned out. Now we're going to move on to the white. 28. Crafting - Part 2: Here's our traditional one. I'm going to do the single ones first. We're leaving the ones with the background for the very last. This one can be a very traditional, simple card. Something that maybe just says, Merry Christmas or happy holidays or whatever suits your fancy, or you can just leave it plain as well. Look how cute it looks. This one here, I was thinking could say something like warm wishes, just because we've got a nice teapot. Originally, I had intended the teapot to be with the orange slices or orange slices, not rinds. But it just looks so much more traditional and cute by itself, which goes back to my whole Less is more. Sometimes we just overcomplicate things in life when really and truly we don't need to recreate the wheel. Yeah. I'm wondering, thinking if we have the stocking in the middle, but I like the break of color, so I'm going to add this guy in the middle and tilt him. Play around with placement. They do not have to be straight, give it a little bit of movement, add something nice to the whole thing. Maybe something like this. I like the diagonal layout better. So we'll go with diagonal. Starting with that at the top. Then this could also be like this. I'm still gravitating towards it going this way. That's how it's going to be. Always go with your gut instinct. That's another lesson. And if your gut instinct was wrong, that's okay at least now your gut knows better for next time. There's that and then the last one before we move on to the next. Great. So now, these are all done as well, and now our final two. 29. Crafting - Part 3: All right, so they have dried up quite nicely. Look how beautiful and dark these centers are. I'll do the flour on this side, and the larger glow will have the candles. So here we go. Again, I'm just adding a little bit to the center. I do want a little bit of a lift happening, and I'm making sure that my shadows are more at the bottom. That's how I'm placing my flower. Beautiful. I love that effect. It just makes everything lift by adding so much depth. Then our last one goes right here. Perfect. Now we allow these to dry and we are going to do a little bit of writing on them, or you can feel free to leave them as they are, or maybe do half and half and go from there. 30. Lettering - Part 1: So I've decided I'm going to letter some of these with a metallic red gold from the car and real brush markers. And I think these are ideal because of the brush. Look at the brush. It's literally like a calligraphy brush. And so this is perfect for writing little messages on cards like such. So I'm going to move these aside. We're going to start off with this one. Again, I'm not quite sure if all of them needed, but this one for sure, could use a warm wishes at the bottom. So that's what I'm going to be doing. So pressing down when you go downward. And then I'm grazing as I go up. You can always go back in and perfect anything that's not looking to your liking. 31. Lettering - Part 2: For this one, I'm going to add a couple of dots using silver or circles. Now, the other route to doing this is you could have done a watercolor splatter if you wanted to, or if you just wanted to be very intentional about where you're placing these silver circles or dots, then obviously you can do what I'm doing. 32. Postcard Style Greetings: So I really like how these turned out and look just by themselves with that nice dark background. So no writing on these or no embellishments. And then this is what the final set looks like. I did go in for this one and perfected some of the thicknesses because sometimes the color doesn't quite come on properly or your lines don't come as thick as you would like them to. So you can just go in after and fix it. So these are what the dark ones look like. We're going to add a couple of embellishments to this one right here. I love the idea of using some of the metallic red gold. Again, you can use watercolor or metallic watercolor as well and do this. All I'm doing is doing well, painting in a nice thin line and an extension. And then another one coming out this way. And you're going to know exactly in a moment what we're doing. We're going to be painting some nice thin leaves. So something to add a little bit of pizzaz and movement to our cute composition. Again, this was not planned specifically because I thought we're just doing the cards as they are and nothing else. But who says you cannot add embellishments after the fact if you feel like it? I want to inspire you guys to take this time to examine areas that you think, because in your head, it's like, we're just doing watercolor doesn't mean it has to end there. You can absolutely go in and paint more and add more embellishments to your cards if you feel like it. Again, you could end it off by just leaving this here, but I like the idea of adding more at the top, so lightly grazing. I like to create my stems first. This just gives me a visual of where I'm placing things helps me plan my composition better. As you can see, these brushes are quite nice for little quick embellishments like this, you don't have to get an actual brush. Just take out the marker. You can do your writing if you wish, and add some embellishments like this. Very convenient and fun. All right. I'm going to leave mine like this. I think this is great. You could write a message at the bottom or not. And this is what the end result looks like. Now we've got these two fun ones left. I'm almost thinking to do something like falla, la, la, la, la. I don't know. Let's see. Then maybe for this one, just a simple Mary everything. Let's try that. A little bit apprehensive. Let's see. Let's start with Mary. I think I'm just going to have to go sideways. I always like to do cursive, but if you like to just print, that also works. Something like that. I was going to say flowery, really curvy and curly, which I think is totally my signature. Mary, everything. I don't know how we're going to do everything this way, but we're going to make it work. Let's do this. Everything. T. Almost done. A little heart for the eye, a little curve at the end, and our T needs to be crossed So it looks like the Y is crossing the T. There we go. That's our merry everything. And so now we can do our falla la. For this, let's switch to using the red again. Actually, I'm going to use this metallic green instead. All right, so fa la la la. La, la, La La. Sing it along with me. Fa, la. La, la. I'm a terrible singer. Okay, and that's it. I like it. It's cute and it's fun. You're just having fun with these guys. I want you to just go with the flow, like I mentioned many times and just do what you feel reflects you, your humor, your likes, your dislikes, and obviously you're giving a piece of yourself to your friends and family. So what better way than to put a little bit of you in it, right? 33. Set of Strathmore Greetings: All right. Here's one last final look at all the cards we have created over this lesson. I hope you guys had a fabulous time learning how to paint while also using some creative skills to create some holiday greetings for friends and loved ones this season. 34. Conclusion: So if you're watching this video, you have now officially completed the full lesson and created your own beautiful cards. So I hope you guys loved it, enjoyed it, try it again, tried multiple times. Remember the whole purpose of this was to take time for you to express in beautiful watercolor while creating beautiful greetings for friends and loved ones. And a quick reminder, don't forget about the project. Make sure you take a picture of your favorite card or cards and post it in the description below. I would love to see how yours have turned out, maybe even list what you really liked about it. If you enjoyed this class, I would love a review. Thanks so much guys for watching and I wish you guys happy holidays and a very merry Christmas.