Paint Dandelions Two Ways: Gouache & Watercolor with Colored Pencils

1. Intro: Hi, I'm Anna and welcome to this relaxing class about painting dandelions. In this class, we will take a simple botanical subject, light fluffy dandelion seed heads, and turn it into a beautiful sketchbook painting. I really love this theme because it looks delicate and detailed, but the process itself can be very calming and forgiving. We will focus, especially in watercolor version on building a deep leafy background first, and then we will add the bright dandelion shapes on top. In gouache, we will do it other way. You have choice. I will show you how to simplify the flowers, how to create that soft airy feeling, and how to use small white details to make the painting feel magical and full of movement. You don't need to paint everything perfectly. This class is more about observing, layering, experimenting with contrast and enjoying the process. You can follow my composition step by step or use it as inspiration for your own sketchbook page. For your class project, you will create your own dandelion painting, either in a more loose watercolor style, or in a more bold graphic version with gouache and pencils. Prepare your paints, a small brush, something quite for the final details, and let's start painting. 2. Project 1. Gouache Ver. Background: Okay, so let's start with our sketchbook. I can even make it here. I have planned to paint something else in here, but I will paint it another day. I'm clipping my pages with the clips. Perhaps I will take away this novel clip. I have already draw a border in which I would like to stay because I like white border around the work. That's why I usually draw a frame in which I need to stay in. Okay, and we will start with the dark green background. So I will paint the whole background only with two colors or three, perhaps, dark greens, which I have on my palette when it comes to gouache, I usually don't mix them. Don't mix them on the palette. I know that I have this palette. I know that there is this palette in the set, but I usually don't use it. I usually mix colors straight on a paper. So first colors, perhaps I will show them to you on this page. I prepared another piece of paper, but perhaps I can do it also in here. So the first color which I'm going to use is just like I said, we will use only dark greens because we need the background to be very dark because we can paint white dandelions later, and it will be okay. So first color is darkish. I think I have it here and it's already dirty, blackish green. So it's blackish green, very beautiful shade of green. I have used it with I think jade green. Jade Green, it's not so dark. This is jade green, like you see, it's not so dark, but still we can add a touch of black to this. Perhaps. I'm not sure. Perhaps most of my background oil paint with blackish green. And in some areas with jade green, we will see. I think I will use mostly these two colors. Let's start with the blackish green and I need to paint the whole background. That's why I don't paint on a four size because it's quite large and it takes a lot of time to paint the whole area. Remember also that if your backgrounds won't be as dark as it should be, we can also darken it later with crayons. It doesn't really matter. It's not something wrong when your background, after all, won't be as dark as it should. I think we can switch black color to Prussian blue. It's also a dark one. It's also dark color, and I think it will create a beautiful effect with this darkish green. Perhaps I will add here this Prussian blue. I'm rewetting my brush a few times when I see that it's too dry, just like it here. I see that it creates a texture on a paper. I know that moment that the brush is too dry. Okay, let's add again a touch of Prussian blue. Let's go on with the darkish cream. Once again, Prussian blue. Here I have background. I see that background is a bit too light. That's why I will add this Prussian blue. Okay. That's all. I see on my phone that it's darken. In reality, it's a bit lighter than I see on the phone. Don't worry if your background is very dark. It's supposed to be and we need to leave it to dry or we can speed up the process with the hair dryer. I'm going to dry my background with the hair dryer and I will be right back. 3. Project 1. Sketch: My background is dry now and we need to sketch our dandelions on the background. To do that, I will use Luminance 713 colors. This is light green and it doesn't matter what color it is. I don't have to be exactly this luminance color. I think the best way to sketch on the background is some kind of white pencil. So it could be any brand. With this pencil, we just sketch our dandelions. For example, one will be in here. The second one will be somewhere in here. The first one could be hiding or it could be smaller even in here. So here and here and here, we can even make one go beyond the page. I also sketch the stem of my dandellions so it will go something like that. When it comes to the sketch, it's done. In the next step, we will start to paint the dandlion flowers. See you then. 4. Project 1. Dandelion part 1: Okay, so for dandelions, I will use square brush, so it's this number six from Himi. I will use one of the white colors from this set. I suppose I will use titanium white. White is more cream color. White is more like snow white color, but I will use titanium white until it's not finished. This is my first color. The second one will be maples yellow, so it's Okay, so we supposed to change our water because it's too green and it dilutes our color. So I will use just like I said, the Snapples yellow color, except the white, it will be a touch of naples yellow. It's like a color of the straw straw color. And also, I will use a touch of Ochre. At the end and perhaps to the ocher color, I will use this brush with a very fine tip and Och color looks like that. We will use these three colors. I will place my second brush somewhere near me. I will clean my brush because I have this brown. Sometimes it's hard to just clean it. I will paint flower after flower. One at a time. I'm almost run out of this titanium white, and this titanium white, I need to mix it a little with water because it is very dense. I have this white and with this brush, you can paint around and also be aware that if you press too hard, the green which is underneath will blend with the white you have on a brush. That's why I'm pressing very lightly on my brush, but still it's not something wrong that the screen looks through this white. We can still take our white and add it once again here, just slightly. I will clean my brush and take an apples yellow. A touch of apples yellow and add it slightly to the bottom of my dandelion. I will take this is number four from Himi and take or color and add this or just to the center. My dandelion. Okay. Perhaps I will switch. Perhaps I will switch to this brush because I think it has the softer end and with the softer end, it won't blend as much with the background. Once again, I'm almost at the end of my white in here. That's why it's so stiff and that's why I need to mix it a bit with water. Okay. Let's try with this one with white. Still, I like this effect. That's why I'm not covering it again. Perhaps for not mixing colors on my brushes, and it will be quicker. I will use this brush for naples yellow, this one for white, and this one for ocher. It will be quicker because I don't have to clean my brush every time every color. This time I'm adding my naples yellow. Okay. I'm trying to blend it slightly with my white and add a touch of this brown to the center. I don't have to be regular, circular shape. It's just the illusion of the center of this dandelim. Let's go on to this one. I like the structure and texture it creates in here and once again, apples yellow. Let's add it a bit. I will take once again ocher and add it in the center. I will mix my white once again with water and paint this dandelion. Let's add apple low to the center and ocher. Easy. Let's in this one. I'm trying to cover the pencil lines. I don't want them to be visible. That's why I'm covering the whole. The last one Sienna. And I'm brown. That's it. When it comes to our bandaions, we need to clean our brushes and it won't be easy task. That's why I will do it outside of the stage. We need to leave it to dry and we will add details with the nlod pencils and again with whiteqh. 5. Project 1. Dandelions part 2: Okay, so my layer is dry and right now, we will paint the stem of our flowers with the wash. I will use a lighter shade of green for that. For example, from the set, I could use pale green or pink green or grass green color. I think I will take pale green. This color looks like this. Quite intense shade of green. I just want the stem to stand out from the background. That's why I will use a lighter shade. I'm using flat brush from the set. I will painting with the side of this brush this way. I'm trying to cover my sketch initial sketch. Well, I see that my brush is dry because I have the texture. That's why I'm re wetting it and painting my stems once again. Let's add some details with the crayons to our work. I will use I will use olive yellow from mianceO 15. This is light yellowish green with a gold vibe, I will add details on my flowers. And I will also add details with the Russet color, but I'm waiting for the stems to dry. Well, I think they have already dried. Russet is reddish brown. With that color, I will add a bit in the center of my flowers. Okay I just need the variety of colors in there and I will simulate shadows on the stems. I think adding different hue to the flowers and stems makes them also interesting makes work more interesting. And Let's go back to white gouache, and I will take and I will take a smaller brush for that number three. And this one is for watercolors and I will use Windsor and Newton gouache because I have more control over it than over this Himi gouache. I'm adding a touch of a drop of water to my gouache, mix it to achieve this quite dense mixture and I can test in here if I can paint spots with this brush. If my Color is thick enough and I can do the spots just like I wanted. I will add spots around the flowers. We can also add lines like that to create more depth and add more interest into our work and create layers of color. Y. Well, it's interesting how each time I paint the same subject over and over again and this work looks quite different. Okay. 6. Project 1. Background details: I would also like to make the background a bit darker because in my previous work, it was darker and I loved how it turned out. Of course, you can leave it that way. It's also fine. But if you have, for example, these new colors carandos because I just love to use them in the backgrounds. You can do it. Still, if you have other crayons or other pencils, you can still use it. I will only use this Prussian blue color. So it's similar to this one, just like you seen. I will use dark green, dark shades from the set. This color is similar to this first one. I think I will add some highlights and for that, I will use Chinese green from this set. It's a bit in similar hue that this olive green. So I will add shade in my work. But since we have this white round, so I'm avoiding to paint in these areas. I suppose we should do the background first and then add white details, but it doesn't matter really how we start. For example, we need to be aware that we need to avoid these areas. I will start from my blue, Prussian blue and I will this area is darker and I just love the texture, crayon, the pencil texture. So we don't have to cover the whole thing exactly to leave solid background. I just love the texture and I love how the backgrounds sees through. I don't know, these are pencils or crayons because in Poland, for the colored pencils, we are taught to say that they are crayons. Just when I start teaching on Skillshare, somebody told me that this is not crayon, it's colored pencil, but I don't know, this is crayon or pencil. Interesting. I will out here some green scribbles. I will add some blow marks on it. It's just like intuitive painting. I know it's not the same, but there is no rules in here, you can paint these marks wherever you want them. Let's add this with this slide. If you don't like something because they are water soluble, you can, for example, make my finger wet and just dilute the marks which I don't like much. Just play with color. And still with the side I can paint light on my stems. Okay. That's all. I hope you like it. I will be more than happy to see your work, so you can download that in a project section and see you in a wrap up video. It 7. Project 2. Sketch + masking fluid: Okay, so right now we will paint watercolor version of dandelions. With this step, we will start to paint, but today we will not paint watercolor version of our dandelions. There is no sketch for this class, so we basically do simple sketches ourselves. For this step, you will need a pencil and perhaps um eraser. Also we will mask some of our parts of our sketch and to do that, I will use watercolor liquid masking fluid from talons, and I'm rolling it before use to make these layers of this liquid to mix with each other. I'm not shaking this liquid because then I will have some bubbles. In it, I'm trying to roll my liquid. I did it before before recording this class and I will use small brush and this brush I only use with liquid. I also have dishwashing liquid to prevent my brush from distraction, but it's already I use it already only for masking fluid. So I don't paint with it and it's cheaper brush, so I dedicated it for masking fluid. Let's start with simple sketching. First, we will sketch the ovals, which will indicate our our dandelions. For example, one of my dandelions will be in here, so it will go out of the piece. One will be something here and you can draw small or bigger Oval. They can also overlap on each other. For example, one will be here and the second will be here and we have the last one in here. Then we need to paint stemps for our dandelions. This is it and this one don't have, for example, we can have also a bud in here. Right now, I will take an eraser and make these lines a bit softer. You can also use knitted eraser if you have right now we will mask the stems, not the whole dandelions. The whole dandelions, we will paint with the white uh. Right now, we only need to preserve the stems. I'm Right now, I soak my brush in the washing up liquid and after that, I pick some masking fluid on my brush and I will mask the stems and also the bad. The bad we mask the whole whole bad, not only the stem. Okay. I'm cleaning my brush, and it's easier since we soak it in washing up liquid, and we need to leave this washing this masking fluid to dry. 8. Project 2. First bg layer: Okay, so let's start by mixing colors for our first layer. I will spray my colors. I will prepare them on my mixing palette. I will also spray because I need a lot of these colors. We will mix three or four shades of cream. I'll just added water to each of these piece because it makes mixing a lot quicker. First color, which I will use is my favorite Autumn Green from Roman Szmal from Aquarius Roman Szmal. I just love that color. This color is granulating once. I will granulate like this on yellow and green shades. I will mix a lot. I know that this format is not big. It's a five format, but still I need a lot of this color. This is my first one. I know that perhaps you don't have this color, but we need medium green. This is my medium shade of green. I will also use green gold. This is my light green. And I also need dark shades. I also need dark shades and first of these darker shades is oxydte green also from Roman Szmal I will mix it in here and oxidte green is also granulating color. Well, it granulates on different shades of green, just like you see in here and you also see here that it starts to granulate. Okay. The last one is dark green. For a dark green color, I will use Indigo Greenish from Roman Szmal. It looks almost like black when it's added straight from the pan. But when you add water to it, it is like darkish green bottle green color. I also love it. This is my new color on a palette, but I just loved it. From the start, and if you don't have this dark green color, you skin still mix whatever green you have medium green on the palette with a bit of paints gray. This is my third color. Still, I will have my palette somewhere next to me because sometimes these color are not enough. I meant that I usually make them too little and just they run out while I paint. That's why I usually have my palette somewhere next to me and when these colors are gone, I will take colors straight from the palette. Also, we will need white gouache somewhere next to us. I have my second palette with gouache on and we will start I will spray. First, I will spray the whole work with water. I'm covering the whole area with water. I'm wetting the surface. Okay. I will remove excess water let's start with these two lighter shades. Let's start with these two lighter shades, green gold, and I will add it somewhere on my work. Then I will take my Autumn Green m. We just at the beginning create I see that Autumn Green, I mixed not enough of this paint, so I will take it straight from the pan. Still, we can help these two colors to mix with each other by rotating our work, helping it to mix with the gravity. Still I see the places where the paper is drying and I'm just adding more paint in these areas. Right now, I will start with my first color, so it's not the darkest one. With oxidate green and I will create with this color illusion of some foliage in the background. I'm drawing stems and painting leaves with this color. I know that they will blend, but that's okay at that stage. Okay. Let's take the darkest shade and do the same process. So I will paint stems and some foliage. I don't already see where I sketched my dandelions, but I'm just memorizing where they're supposed to be. So for example, remember that I have somewhere in the something in the corner. Okay. And right now, I will add the first layer of white. On my background, we only need to wait a second or two or a minute or two because I don't want to add my white where the puddles are on the background because I know that this white will spread much when there is a big puddle. We start with the areas where we don't have big puddles. For example, in here, I start to add my white in here, this is the first layer of white. Don't be afraid that perhaps it will mix with the background much. I see that I don't have a big puddle over here. This white will spread and will blend with the colors you have under. The next one will be here because I have a puddle in here and I have puddle in here. The areas with puddles we will paint as last. I'm cleaning my brush every dandelion, every dandelion, because the white is not white on my brush anymore after painting because I lift some greenery from my background. Perhaps let's paint this one Okay. You see that my white is not white anymore on the brush. It's a little bit have greenish tones on it. The last one. Okay. We need to leave it to dry or we can speed up the process with the hair dryer, so it's up to you. For the next step, it's better to change your water, we should start with the clean water. See you in the next step. 9. Project 2. Second bg layer: Okay. I have dried my work with the hair dryer and just like you see, the white dandelions are not white anymore. We'll correct that in this stage. But first, we will add more foliage in the background. Because white usually dilutes the water and to speed up the process because I don't want to change the water for every five or 10 minutes. We will do it in this way that first we will paint the foliage, then we will paint the white. Once again, and then we will add the second layer of foliage, but we will mix some greens with the white gouache to achieve more solid light green color. First, we need the same colors, perhaps without this green gold. So we need once again autumn green, so medium green and two dark green shades. I will use the same. Autumn green oxidte green and indigo greenish, and I will mix them in 50 50 is not very translucent. I'll usually call it in this medium volume. I will use mop brush for that and this one is my favorite favorite of all time. It's from Da Vinci and it's Rabi Alie vast. It's perfect because you can paint very thin lines with the tip of this brush and when you press it harder, you can create this beautiful shapes of leaves. Right now, we will simply do that. I will start with the medium value autumn green, and I will paint a stem and some leaves. These leaves won't blend with the background, so Still, if your brush don't have this very thin tip, you can paint the stems with a smaller brush with thin brush or also with the liner. It's up to you. Right now, I will take oxidteGreen and paint some leaves. You can go on the white Dandelions. We will correct that later. We create the illusion that there is something more in the background and right now, I will take the darkest shade and create some foliage. These leaves could be smaller or bigger. It's up to you how you would like to paint them. I will take my wash once again and paint the second layer on my tantalons. But before we move on, I want to show you the same painting on different paper. This paper is 100% of cotton, just like you see, when I added first layer of wash on a wet background, it spread it a lot. This paper is 25% of cotton. This paper is 100% of cotton. The effect depends on the paper. I like both effects. But still, you need to be aware that the effect you will achieve depends also, except the technique from the paper you use. I took a white uh once again, and I will Correct, my shapes. But I will also take a smaller brush because I don't want these edges to be very sharp. That's why with the dumper brush, I will slightly dilute the edges. Another. There's another dandelion. Once again, with my second damp brush, I will dilute the edges. I don't want them to be this sharp. I repeat the process on Ardendlum And remember, even if this didn't work out on your work, it doesn't matter because we will add details which will cover the mistakes on the next step. Don't worry if something don't look perfect for you. At this stage, it doesn't really matter. Oh Once again, when it dries, it won't be clear white. Also, you need to be aware of that. This one dandelions are sticking with each other. That's why I will paint them in one go. This is my second. Right now I see where I should blend the edges. No. Okay. So we'll leave it to dry for a bit and we will mix a lighter shade of green with white. I have white on my brush and I will mix it with the autumn green. You can use whatever medium green you have on our palette. I would like to achieve this one is light, so I need to add more paint to my mixture. I want to achieve a lighter shade of green and this will be a pastel green. When we add a white to one of our colors, we will achieve a pastel shade of this color. So this one. This one is perfect. Perhaps I don't have it enough, but we will with the same brush, I will add again, a stem and leaves. I think I need to add more water more white and more paint. Okay. I love it. We need to make it dry. So once again, I will speed up my process with the hair dryer. You can leave it and, for example, come back to your work. If you don't have time, you can come back to your work next day or you can just let me speed up the process with the hair dryer. See you in the next. 10. Project 2. White details: Okay, so everything is dry now and right now, I will remove the masking fluid from my work. This one, I have different brands of masking fluid and I have to say that this one is really easy to remove from your work. I just started using it once again because for a moment, I used other brand and though it was much easier to apply because it was with some applier, it was very hard to remove from your work and this one from talens is just perfect to remove. You can remove it simply with your finger. You don't have to have any fancy tools. We also need to change our water. We will add details for our work and we will start with the stems for that, I will use a smaller brush, smaller soft brush, it's number two from Princeton. I will use Se on a light, I think. It will be the perfect. Perfect color for this. Or you can mix it with a bit of red ocher to create this light brown color. I mixing it with a 50, 50 ratio or even more waterless paint. So it's very translucent, something like that. With this color, I will paint the stems of my dandelions. I will switch to stiffer brush. This is also small brush, so it's number three. It's even bigger than this one. But this one I feel that this one is very soft and this one is more stiff. I need a stiffer brush. For my purpose, and I will paint with a white gouache. I will add details on my work. For example, let's start from this one and I will create the illusion of fluffiness of the standalons and we will make the process the same on every dandelion. First, we paint the strokes and some dots around it. You can try different lines. I try to paint here with rounded shapes, rounded lines. On my first work, well, it's not even my first work. It was I painted it a few times, but every time I changed something. Here you see that the lines are very straight and they come from the center to the outside. Right now, I changed my moves and I started to paint from the outside to the inside to see what happens. I also started to paint rounded shapes for my dandelions because I like to experiment and I want to see what happens if that shape suits me better if I like it better. Every time, even if I paint something few times, I usually change something. The color, the shape. Well, I think I like it better. I like this shape and the roundness it created. The tip for you is that it is very good to experiment and it's very good for you and your creativity to paint some subjects more times than once. So let's try to do it again in here. Also, I like this dry brush texture. I like it. That's why I don't mind when it naturally is a scene. It is not something I avoid because I like it. First, I just paint the more bigger shapes and then I add these softer ones, smaller ones which create the density of the dandelion. We can also add the dots inside of this dandelion and see if we like the effect. If so, I will repeat the process on other dandelions also. We have two more to go. You can even paint it in one go so We have dandelions done. Well, I must say that I just love the effect. But still, I will add little white flowers somewhere in these spaces. For example, in here, for example, in here, these flowers are simply just white dots, for example, in here, and I don't know, maybe some in here around the border. We will finish this spot. In my brush still with the small and stiff brush, I will take my dark green. For example, Chromium oxidte green. I want it to be thick this color. That's why I will take it straight from the pan and I will draw the stems for these flowers for these little flowers. We can even draw a leaves for this valet. If you feel so, of course. That's okay the stage. I think it's even already done. If you want, you can finish at this step. But I usually add more details. But in this case, it will be only the shadows with the colored pencils. See you in the next step. 11. Project 2. Colored pencils: Okay, so the last step, and I will use only one color for this. This one is 65 from luminance, sanguin Russet. This is a reddish shade of brown. And we will add just the shade on our stems. Of course, you can do it also with the watercolor. It's not something you cannot do. You can. But I just love the texture of the pencils. That's why I usually for the final step, use colored pencils. So Perhaps you noticed in my classes, but I usually use the same colors over and over again. The same in here. But with the side of my pencil, I'm trying to add some shade on the top of this area and on the left side. Of the bad and I will add the shade. And by pressing harder, I will add more shadow on the left side. Okay. And one last thing, I also would like to add some brownish tone in here, and I will do it with the side of my pencil. I just add the center of the dandlion and we can also do it with this round shape to indicate that every white petal? I can call it petal because I don't know how it's called even in polish, but this white is connected to this round center of the dandelion. Slightly. I'm very happy with the result and it's time to remove the masking tape and see the whole result. I must say that I'm very happy. I like it. I think I like it even better than this one. And I think I like it because of the shape, the roundness. This one feels more rounded dandelions than this one. Still, I love this work. I could create a postcard from it. Perhaps I like the background better in this work, but the dandelions lay more on this work. Perhaps I should try and give it another try and combine the background from this work and the shape from this work. That's why I work sometimes. That's why I paint some subjects three or more times because I see that something I like in here and something more in here and I try to combine. I like this background better because it has more contrast. This one is a bit darker for me. And this one has more contrast, but still love them both. See you in the wrap up video. 12. Outro: Thank you so much for painting with me. I hope this class helps you see how a simple subject like Dandelions can become a really beautiful and expressive sketchbook page. We worked with contrast, dark greens, soft white details, and those tiny little marks that make the flowers feel light and full of air. Remember, your painting doesn't have to look exactly like mine. Maybe your background is softer, maybe your dandelions are bigger, maybe your composition feels more wild and spontaneous and that's completely okay. These small differences are what make your sketchbook yours. For your class project, please share your finished Dantion painting in the project gallery. I'd love to see your version, whether you follow the lesson closely or created your own interpretation. If you enjoy this class, you can also check out my other watercolor and gouache classes where we paint more nature inspired subjects in a calm, beginner friendly way. Thank you again for joining me and I hope to see you in the next class. Happy painting.