Paint Christmas card with watercolors using the “Wet on Wet” technique

1. Introduction: Hi guys. I'm Kate, and I have been painting with water color for a lot of years. To be honest, if you want to learn more about me as an artist and about my life, about my creativity, you can always check my Instagram page. This is my nickname. I would be really glad if you subscribe, but today I would like to paint with you Christmas postcard to cheer you up a little bit in this December and enjoy Christmas and New Year wood together. In this lesson, you will learn how to draw complex objects. How to prepare pencil drawing for watercolor painting. How to choose correct technique for your painting. How to work in wet and white technique. How to achieve the desired color for face painting. How to use dry, dry technique. How to add small details. How to use white gah for watercolor painting. How Bristol brush could help you to create some magic on your postcard. In the end of this lesson, you will get such a painting, so let's get started. 2. Step 1: pencil drawing: I start with the pencil drawing. In order to depict such a complex figure as a nut cracker, we need to break it down into simple geometric shapes, such as rectangles, circles, and semicircles. From the very beginning, let's arrange the sheet and outline the boundaries of our figure. In order for the drawing to be symmetrical, I draw a strike vertical line. This is our axis of symmetry, relative to which we will reflect all the lines. Now I outline the body. The nutcraer, This is the main large rectangle in the center. I leave about a quarter of the height of the entire Nutcraer. On the top for the head, and another quarter at the bottom for the boots. I draw a horizontal line in the upper part of the body. This is the border where the brim of the head ends. Now I draw a semicircle on the top. This is the main part of the head, and the two triangles on the right and left are the borders of the head. Don't forget to bend at the edge of the triangle slightly to make our head elegant. Another semicircle helps me draw the bottom border of the head. Symmetrically, I draw two curved lines to get two sharp ovals. Now I draw twicocles on the left and right. This is the he right under the hair I outline two rectangles. These are hands, two more semicocles are palms. Now I move on to the legs. I draw two vertical lines to the bottom mark and again draw two semi ovals. Below these are the feet. I erase the extra lines so that they don't bother us. Add decorations to the head in the form of a circle and a sharp oval. I draw ice, these icecles and the nose in the form of a triangle. I draw a horizontal line that limits the uniform and draw the blush in the shape of two semicocles. I draw the pupils, these are two more circles with a slightly smaller diameter. I limit the mouth with two vertical lines on the left and right, and also draw two horizontal lines inside. These are the teeth. I divide the rectangle in half. Draw a small vertical line, and then divide the smaller rectangles in half. Again, this is how we draw the teeth symmetrically. I draw cuffs on the sleeves and buttons in the form of small circles. How a pencil drawing is ready. I hope it wasn't too difficult for you. Before moving onto watercolor, it's important to tone down the intensity of the pencil drawing. Watercolor is a transluent paint that will easily show the entire pencil drawing, so I make the pencil less intense with an eraser. 3. Step 2: wet on wet: Before you start painting with watercolor, you need to prepare your paints for work. I put a drop of clean water into each cuvette that I will use. Today, we will be working with yellow, oranges, browns, greens, and red shades. I will make the background on the cart using the wet and wet technique. This technique is so called because the paints are applied to a wet sheet of the paper. This means that the first step is to moisten the sheet with clean water. Please note that I carefully wet the sheet without going beyond the nut breaker. This is a very important detail. Watercolor spreads only on wet paper. Which means that where we leave the paper dry, no paint will get in. This is exactly what we need, because the color for the background and for nut creer is completely different. I start with clean, bright colors, yellow and orange. Due to the fact that the water in the glass is still clean, we will be able to convey a very bright shade. On paper, I put strokes of yellow and orange paint where I see them on the reference. Now it's time for green. Using the same brush, I begin to add a green tint in spots. Thanks to the wet technique, our colors blend smoothly and leave no strays. To make the colors blend even nicer, I take that board in different directions. Consider the amount of water that accumulates at the border with the nut cracker. If there is a lot of water, then under the influence of gravity the paint may flow to the nut cracker, which is best to try to avoid while the paper is still wet. I add the silhouette of spruce branches to the background and fill in the remaining white spaces. Make the background more interesting. I splatter yellow and orange paint using a Bristol brush. I do not recommend splashing clean water onto the background here as we can easily lose the situation and depth of the picture. In this case, it's better to do the splashes with pain. It's important to completely dry the whole painting before moving on the next step. 4. Step 3: nutcracker: Don't forget to refresh the water in the glass. Clean water is a guarantee of bright and pleasant colors on the paper. I will start painting from the face. To do this, I need to get a flesh tone. I mix three colors, yellow, red, and brown, and then heavily dilute this mixture with clean water. But to give the nutcracker volume, it's important to paint shadows. For the shadows, I use one go dusty purple shade, which I think works well here. Our shadows is usually located along the borders in general. Now, it doesn't matter in what order and what colors you paint the nutcracker. Treat this stage like coloring and go with the flow. Experimenting with colors, I decide to paint the uniform red, to carefully paint the edges. A thin, synthetic brush, It will give you maximum control over the water and at the same time, very rich pigment. I also paint blush with red but diluted with water. It's better to apply after your face has dried. In general, we are now working in a dry technique in order to carefully observe all the boundaries between small elements. I move on to coloring the head and filling it with red. Also, don't forget about the purple shadow here. It's best to add the shadow while the red color is still wet. In this way, he will achieve the smoothest color blending. Since I have already put a dark purple shade on my brush, I will paint over their mouth with it. Here the paint needs to be applied tightly so that the shade on the paper appears almost black. Paint the boots with the same color. I prefer to avoid using the black from watercolor set, as it usually looks much less saturated and dull on the paper. I paint the cuffs with the same color. I paint all the gold elements on my hands with yellow. Then I move on to the uniform and use a slightly lighter red to create more volume and highlight the front of the nut cracker. I returned to the yellow orange shade again and paint over the head and buttons. I use purple to draw spirals inside the hair. I used the same color to pend the boundaries between the teeth, and I'm modifying the belt. 5. Step 4: small details: Now I'm starting to draw with colored pencils. At this stage, we will draw small details. I start with drawing the pupils. I fill them in with black pencil and then I pen them in with dark purple water color. Then using a gold pen, I draw the decoration on the shoes in order for the gold pen to give off the pigment. Richly try to hold it almost vertically and slowly draw the desired pattern. Then I add gold to the head and draw some lines on the border. I also add the golden line to the sleeves. Again, I take the black pencil and lightly highlight the eyes and draw a shadow under the nose. I take a pitch pencil and draw in the nostrils, lightly filling in the space. Then I use a red pencil to enhance the blush using circular strokes. And I draw a dividing line along their clothes and mouth. Now I take white gouache, mix it with a yellow, orange shade of water color. I draw light elements on the head here. It's important to take your time and maintain even pressure on the brush to get an even line if you made a mistake somewhere. I don't worry, you can easily correct it with colored pencils as I do right now. With the red pencil, I use an erasor to remove pencil in the eyes of nut cracker, I draw the eyebrows with a black pencil. I take a green pencil and draw the spruce branches. Use semicircle strokes to convey the fluffiness of the spruce. Next, to add bright yellow lights, I take a Bristol brush and gas mixed with yellow water color. I add splashes on the background. Our postcard is radio. Thank you for watching my lesson. I really appreciate that you trust me as a teacher. Don't forget to subscribe to my skillshare account to be who knows about new watercolor lessons. Feel free to leave the comment if you like this lesson or not. I would be also very interested in your work in students project sections. I really like to see your progress and learn more about what was difficult for you during this lesson and what was easy and interesting. Happy Holiday season. Enjoy your Christmas time. See you soon by.