Paint Potted Plants in Watercolor: A 14 Day Art Challenge

1. Welcome to the Class: Are you a plant lover and would you do like to illustrate some popular indoor potted plants by following a 14-day art challenge? Then this class is for you, because I'm showing you step-by-step process of painting 14 different plants and unique plant pot combinations using watercolors. Hi, my name is Garima Srivastava. I'm an artist and freelance illustrator based in the Netherlands. I've been painting since 2011, and I love combining traditional and digital art techniques to create designs for stationary, home decor, and fashion products. I love teaching here on Skillshare, where I've taught thousands of students my way of creating art that's beautiful, yet simple and achievable. Watercolor is one of my favorite mediums to paint, and I love painting a variety of subjects. Indoor potted plants are so relaxing to paint that I often come back to them. Having learned from my personal experience, I know that whatever stage you're at in your creative journey, it's normal to lose touch with your creativity. Starting simple by creating one small thing every single day is a great way to get back at it or start a new creative routine. That's why I've created this class in a 14-day art challenge format, with all the lessons available to you right away. This class is suitable for all skill levels. Beginners will learn important skills like painting wet-on-wet, lifting color, negative painting, and adding details both on wet and dry surfaces. Experienced artists can follow this class as an art challenge using their own style and preferred art medium. I've also shared in this class my tips for successfully following art challenges and a bonus lesson on building a design database to help you create unique plant pots. For each day of this challenge, there's a 10-15 minute lesson which contains drawing, color mixing, and painting a potted plant based on a prompt list. Please feel free to follow this class at your own pace. As a project for this class, you can paint one or more potted plants I have shown or follow the entire challenge. By the end of this class, you would not only have lovely plant illustrations, but also the confidence to further explore watercolor as an art medium, and possibly a creative habit as well. I hope you'll join me in this fun creative challenge. Get your paper and colors ready, and let's paint some potted plants. See you in the class. 2. Project Overview: Welcome to this class. I'm so happy that you decided to join us. As a project for this class, you can follow along and paint for more plant and port combinations I'll be showing you in this class, or follow the entire challenge. I would love to see what you create, so please do make sure to upload your projects here on Skillshare under the Projects and Resources tab. You can also tag me on Instagram to share what you create with this class. 3. Resources and Class Framework: Let's look at the downloadable resources for this class. When you open this class through a desktop or a web page on your tablet, you'll be able to see projects and resources tab. On the right side, you'll find resources. First step, is a line drawing PDF for your drawing reference, you will also find here the art supply list and images of the finished daily project, before we get started, here's a quick overview of how this class is formatted. After this video, I'll share with you the art supplies I've used in this class. Next step, I'm sharing with you my tips on following our challenges to build a creative habit. Following this is an important lesson on watercolor techniques, most of which I've used in this class. Then we will discuss color mixing formulas that I often use, as a bonus lesson, I'm sharing with you how to create a plant pot design database. Following this are 14 individual lessons, one for each day of this art challenge containing drawing, color mixing, and painting a plant and a pot. Here's the prompt list for this art challenge. Now let's get started. 4. Art Supplies: Let's look at the art supplies I have used in this class. For paper, I'm using Canson Heritage, 100 percent cotton, cold pressed watercolor paper. It is 300 GSM in weight. I have further divided each sheet into smaller pieces like this. For each day of the challenge, I'll attach this sheet of watercolor paper onto a cardboard piece like this, and add two small pieces of scotch tape on the top and the bottom surface. You do not need to tape all the edges. We are not going to use that much water, and 300 GSM paper will not buckle that easily. For this class, feel free to use any other type of watercolor paper. Just make sure it's close to 300 GSM in weight. Canson XL is a great affordable watercolor paper for beginners. It's surface is a little smoother compared to other cold pressed watercolor papers. I'll also be using a tracing paper just to create the shape of the plant pot a little bit symmetric, but feel free to freehand draw it. For colors, I'll be using tube colors that I've squeezed out into a color palette like this, but feel free to use your favorite pen colors. I'll further be using a palette like this to create my color mixes. Let's see the colors I have on my palette. For yellows, I have arlen yellow, permanent yellow deep, quinacridone gold. For pinks and reds, I have quinacridone magenta, permanent rose, alizarin crimson, some perylene maroon. I've also got dioxazine violet, sap Green, burnt umber, and some lamp black. For blues, I have cerulean blue, cobalt blue, indigo, and taylor Blue. Now let's look at the brushes I'm using for this class. For color mixing I'm using a Number 6 round natural hair brush. It holds quite a bit of water in it. To activate your color, spread some water on your watercolor palette. Now let's look at the brushes I'm using to paint. To paint the plant pots, I'll mostly be using Number 8, flat Da Vinci cosmotop spin synthetic brush. It's quite a versatile brush. You can create flat lines like this. Fill up bigger shapes like this. Gives you quite sharp edges, and if you tilt the brush and use just the tip of the edge, you'll be also able to create fine lines like this. So if you have a flat brush, try holding it quite low and practice creating flat lines and small shapes like this. To paint the leaves, I'll be using a Number 4 round Princeton Velvetouch brush. It's also a synthetic brush. It's a round pointed brush. So with that, I'm able to create fine lines, wavy lines, but also big, broad leaves when I press the brush down a little bit. To create a leaf shape, simply touch with the tip, press the brush down and lift as you're coming out. You can repeat this brush stroke to create a broader leaf. So touch the tip, press the brush down and lift as you're coming out. To add details, I'll be using a Number 2 Da Vinci Cosmo top spin and a triple zero Da Vinci Cosmo top spin brush. They both are round and pointed. You can practice the same marks with your smaller brushes as well. To add some white details, I'll be using a bleed proof white. Apart from your brushes you'll also need a pencil to create your drawing. I'm using a number 2B pencil. To pick excess graphite, you can use a kneaded gum eraser like this and press it on your drawing to pick any excess graphite and it leaves you faint pencil guidelines. To erase them completely, I'm using Faber-Castell's eraser. I've also got small pieces of watercolor paper like this to test my colors. You will lead the spritz bottle to activate your colors, a kitchen paper towel to soak up excess moisture from your brush, and let's not forget a jar of clear water. 5. Art Challenge Tips : Although I had been painting professionally for a few years, it was during a difficult pregnancy and a tough first year being a mother that I lost touch with my creativity. I was yearning to get back to it. It was a popular 30-day art challenge in the month of October that got me to creating again and I've never stopped after that. Since then, I've followed many art challenges that have led me to not just skill improvement, but also many design opportunities. Art challenges can be a bit tricky, especially if you do not have much time in hand. Here are my tips to successfully following art challenges. Decide on how much time you have every single day for your creative practice. Whether it's an hour or even five minutes, it's all good. Just commit to it. Pick a prompt lists that you like. You can look on social media for current or past art challenges. Also decide on the style you will use to follow the art challenge. Little sketches or doodles if you are short on time, illustrations and elaborate studies, if you have a bit more time in hand. Each illustration from this class can be completed in 15-20 minutes based on your style. I also highly recommend saving some reference images before you actually start the art challenge. Keep your art supplies handy, simple to prepare, and easy to clean up afterwards. This will help you fight procrastination. Start simple and gradually build up as you move along the art challenge. Share your art with people who appreciate your creativity and when you're ready, share it with the world on social media. It helps you stay accountable and you'll be surprised to see all the support you'll get. One more thing, do not let any negative comment define your art or the artist you are. My last advice is don't be too hard on yourself. If you miss a day or two or more, simply begin again. 6. Watercolor Techniques : Let's look at some important watercolor techniques and concepts, most of which we have used in this class. Let's start with watercolor application. You can apply watercolor on a wet paper or on a dry paper. Both of them will have slightly different results. I'm using plain water to wet the paper here, and another place here. Try not to immediately add colors because there's too much water on the surface of paper and if you add your color mix on top of it, it will bleed uncontrollably. Wait just a little bit. Sometimes I wait for the shine of the water to go away. Let's create our color mix. Depending on how wet your paper is, the color will bleed. You can create a flat shape like this or simply add in a smaller area. Rinse your brush and lightly spread the color around for a much softer look. Now, you can also apply color directly on a dry paper. Simply pick your color in your brush and create your shape. You can create similar wash like this. Add the color in a smaller area, rinse your brush better dry, and then spread the color a little bit away from the initial spot. You can see the difference between the two applications. On wet, you will see a softer fuzzier look and here white sharp, hard edges. Now, let's see how you add a color on top of another layer of color. I'm picking some arlene yellow. I've created a shape here. Depending on how wet this paper is and how watery my color mixes, the next color I'm going to add is going to bleed and blend here. I'll pick some alizarin crimson, create a mix here, and then I'm going to add it on top of this, already wet arlene yellow color wash. This will give you a softer look and fuzzy edges. You can do the same on a dry surface. Earlier color has dried, now you're applying another color or another layer of same color. This yellow has dried, I'm applying some red on top. This gives me hard edges. Here you can see they are quite soft and fuzzy, and here very sharp. This technique of adding transparent washes on top of another dried wash is called glazing. You have a dried wash and you're simply adding another layer of transparent wash up on top. You can use this technique to create darker values. What that means is I've got a really light cobalt blue wash here. I'm going to add another layer of cobalt blue up on top here. Now that this second layer has dried, if I'll add another layer of cobalt blue on top, I'll get an even darker value. I've got three values, really light, medium and dark. You can also use glazing to shift the color. I've got a little bit of pink here. If I'll add, say a little bit of taylor blue up on top. You can see by adding a little bit of taylor blue on top of this pink wash, I'm able to create a violet here. Now, when it comes to adding details on top of plant pots or leaves, there are two ways of doing it. One is to create sharper looking details. Let's pick a little bit of burnt umber, little bit of alizarin crimson. With that, let's add some spots on top of this plant pot. You can see how these shapes are very sharp edged. Other way of adding details on dry surfaces is by adding little bit of color, rinsing your brush, patting it dry, and then gently spread that color and soften it up. Rinse your brush, pat it dry and soften it. Rinsing my brush, patting it dry and run it along the edge to soften the edge. Two ways of adding details. Now for example, your leaves are light in color and you want to add darker details on top of it. One way is on wet surface. Let's say you have a light color leaf here, you've just painted it, still a bit wet. I wait to add details just a little bit, else your colors will bleed uncontrollably. Now in your brush, pick a darker color. I'm picking some indigo. Remove excess moisture. You don't want too much moisture. With that, you can add the detail. Let's see it one more time, a bit quicker this time. The leaf is still quite wet. Rinse my brush, pat it dry. Picking quite a thick indigo mix. Now, the leaf is still wet. I'm adding this mix on top of this wet leaf. It will give me slightly fuzzy, but still quite dark details. You can do the same when you earlier wash has dried, so on a dry surface I had created this lighter leaf. Then you can simply pick your darker details and then add them like this. There's a difference between two. This one will give you a little fuzzier looking veins and here you will get much sharper looking veins. These were the two ways of adding darker details on top of a lighter colored leaf. Now what about the leaves where the leaf is dark but the details, the veins are lighter in color? Let's create a darker color leaf. I'm mixing sap green, some indigo. Let's paint this leaf here. Now to add the details, I'll pick a finer brush, Number 2 brush, rinse it, and then with this wet brush, I'm going to run it along the leaf where I want to create the detail like a central vein. As you can see, the water in my brush has repelled the color mix that was sitting on the surface of this leaf and it has created lighter vein right in the middle while the leaf is still wet. This will give you quite a fuzzy looking vein. You can do this similar technique. I've got that same indigo and sap green mix. I've got some Arlen yellow mix here. With my finer brush, I'll pick some Arlen yellow. This will give you almost similar result, but the vein will look a little bit more yellower this time. Another way of adding lighter details is by the use of some alcohol. Let's create a shape here. I've got a little bit of alcohol here and with the use of an earbud, wherever you will touch the alcohol, it's going to create lighter areas. All of these techniques you can try while the base leaf is still wet. Another one is with the use of some salt. I've painted a shape here. Now I'm going to sprinkle a little bit of salt on top of it. Once the leaf dries, you can dust off this salt from here and then it will give you light spots, something like this. Another way of creating lighter color details on a darker leaf is by lifting the color while the surface is still wet. Now I've got my brush ready. The leaf is still wet. This is a Number 2 round brush rinsed. Pat it to to dry. Now I'm going to run it along the vein. Rinse, pat to dry, repeat. Based on the staining quality of the color and the lifting property of the paper, you'll be able to create different lightness with this method. These were some of the techniques that you can use to create lighter color veins on a dark leaf while the leaf is still wet. Now let's look at the techniques that you can use to create details on a dark base while the leaf is dried already. One of them is lifting when the leaf has dried, I'm going to lift the color. Leaf has already dried. With my Number 2 round brush, I'm going to rinse it, pat it slightly dry. Then I'm going to run it along the edge where I want to lift the color. Then quickly pick a piece of kitchen paper and press it on top of that wet line. Let's see it one more time. Rinse my brush, pat it to dry, running it along where I want to create the vein. It reactivates the color on the top surface and then use a kitchen paper towel, press it, and it lifts the color, giving you a lighter vein like this. The other method is negative painting. What that means is you'll be creating lighter color veins by painting the rest of the area dark. I've created a vein here and I'm going to leave just the vein and paint rest of the leaf dark. This way will be making the veins visible negatively. Your painting rest of the area and leaving just the vein. You can see how a lighter color vein has appeared on a darker leaf. You can also use a masking fluid and add little details. On top of a light wash, I'll wait for this to dry. In the meantime, we can see how you can simply use some bleed proof white or some gouache. I've got some bleed proof white, I'm adding a little bit of green here. With that you can also add lighter color details on top of a dark surface. Once the masking fluid dries you can pick your brush and add a darker wash on top. Now that this leaf has almost dried, I can simply use my hand or an eraser to pick out this masking fluid. Now you can see how that light masked vein is now visible. These were some of the techniques you can use to create light color details on top of dark leaves when the surface is dry. 7. Colors: Let's talk a little bit about colors. Here's the color palette I've used in this class and here's the list of all the colors that are in here. As you can see it's not a small color palette but at the same time not a really extensive one either. Instead of keeping a huge variety of unique ready-to-use colors, what I've done is I've kept a few different primaries. I've got four blues, four pinks and reds, and three yellows. Apart from these, I have got some ready-to-use colors like dioxazine violet, sap green, burnt umber, and lampblack. With the help of the primaries I have, I'm already able to mix quite a few different secondary colors that I need like green, violets, and oranges. Apart from mixing these colors from scratch, when I need a consistent color mix, I often simply use or manipulate these ready-to-use colors like dioxazine violet, sap green, or burnt umber. Here are some of the ways in which I manipulate sap green. Here is how I change burnt umber and also dioxazine violet. Let's talk a little bit about neutral colors. These are muted shades that actually lack color and you cannot really find them on a color real. Examples of pure neutral are black, brown, white, and gray. If you mix a primary color with a pure neutral, you are able to achieve a near-neutral color. Some examples are taupe, beige, caramel, or khaki. To mix a gray, you can combine your primary colors together. So here's how I mix my gray, a little bit of cobalt blue, aureolin, and alizarin crimson gives me a gray. To mix a really deep neutral color, I quickly combine some indigo with some burnt umber, it gives me close to black color, and to get a quick neutral green, I combine lamp black with some yellow. You do not need too many colors in your color palette, try to keep a few different kinds of your primary colors and you can also indulge some some ready-to-use shades which come in handy when you want to create a quick and consistent mix. If you do not have these exact colors, please don't worry try to mix a similar color using the colors in your color palette. For each day of this art challenge, I will show you how I will mix all of the colors that will be needed for that day. 8. Design Database: For topics like plant pots, you can spend an awful lot of time trying to find inspiration to paint something different every day for your art challenge. But there's another way with which you'll be able to come up with fresh designs to paint your plant pots every single time. Let me show you how. For this, you will need either a sketch book or a journal where you can make some notes, draw some sketches, or if you want to do it digitally, then you can also use a Pinterest board to collect some images. Step 1 is to make a list of the materials used in the plant pots like wood, rattan, jute, clay or metal. Step 2 is to make some draft drawings of all kinds of shapes of plant pots that you see. Try to include some unique unconventional ones. Try to vary them in their sizes. For step 3, make a few sketches of different kinds of stands, handles or hangers that you see with plant pots. For step 4, either write down or draw or paint designs that you like to see or you often notice on plant pots. It can be stripes, dots, geometric designs, florals or even faces. Now that you have these notes with you, each time you need a plant pot, you can simply pick a unique combination out of this database. Simply pick a material, decide on the shape, put it on a stand or not, and then decide on the texture or design that you will have on it. I hope this will help you not just with this art challenge but the future ones as well. 9. Day 1 String of Pearls: Welcome to day 1. I'm so happy that you decided to join me in this art challenge. Today, I'm going to start with a simple plant, a type of a succulent called string of pearls or string of beads. With a plant like this that hangs from the pot, I like to paint the pot with a little bit of a face on it so that the plant looks like the hair, and together they look like a little human character there. To get started, you can create the pot first. You can freehand draw the pot whichever way, whichever shape you like. I like to have my pots a bit symmetric-looking, so I'll be using a tracing paper. Now with this half of the pot, I'm going to trace the two sides almost symmetric. You can simply draw the features, so a little nose, we'll be adding eyes. I'll be adding three legs, so two legs, and then one smaller one at the back. You don't need to draw the plant in this case. But they are just little round shaped green color shapes attached with a very thin string. Now, our basic sketch is ready. We are going to mix the colors for the pot and the plant. In this case, I want the pot to be lighter color. I'm going to paint the pot first and the little succulent leaves later. I'll pick any excess graphite off from my paper with the help of a kneading gum eraser. For the pot, I want to paint it in two colors. First one will be slight blush color, so I'm picking some permanent rose. I'll add a little bit of permanent yellow to it. You can test out the color. [NOISE] I'm happy with this color. You can start with number 4 or number 6 round brush or a flat number 8 brush like this depending on the size of little pot you're painting. I've got my number 8 flat brush. With that, I'm going to paint this pot. With a completely flat wash, I've painted the shape of the pot. I'll add the same color to the legs for now. It's already drying. In the meantime, I'm going to mix my greens for the plant. I'm starting with sap green, I'll also create a bit darker version of it with some sap green and a little bit of indigo added to it. [NOISE] You want this pot to dry completely before you add the leaves anywhere near it, else the color will bleed on the pot. With my round number 4 Princeton velvet touch brush, I'll make a few strings hanging from the pot. I'm trying not to touch the pot because it's still wet. I'm just using the tip of my brush to create these little strings. Now we can start adding the little beads or the pearls. So just little round globs attached to the string. Make them smaller as you go towards the end of the string. The pot looks like it has dried, but I can still feel that there's a bit of moisture there, so I'm being a bit more careful. Around here, you can make the beads denser. Make them closer, a bit bigger. Sometimes I add a few darker ones. It gives a nice variation. For darker leaves, I have indigo plus sap green in my brush. We can continue adding leaves, but before that, I want to add some features on this pot here. For that, I'm going to mix a little bit darker color than this, but quite close to it. I'll first start with some Alizarin crimson and add a touch of burnt umber to it. I'll test the color out. That's fine. Now with this color, I'll add a little nose. It's not really little. Quite a big nose, in fact. He's the nose. Little mouth, eyes that are closed. Then you can add a little pattern here. It can be a floral pattern, or dots, or stripes like this. Then make the legs darker as well. Now with the same color, but a bit more watered down, I'm going to add little blush marks here, little hoops outside to look like ear rings. While the features are drying, we'll continue adding more leaves. Like I said earlier, make them quite dense on the top here. At this point, step back and see where would you like to add a few more strings. I want a few falling off on the forehead part. Now you can see why I painted the pot a bit lighter in color, so that we can very easily add leaves and there'll be nicely visible. Just adding some final touches. Now I'm going to darken up these little feet here. With this, my today's plant is ready. [NOISE] 10. Day 2 Areca Palm: Hello, welcome to Day 2. Today we are painting Areca palm. It's also known as golden cane palm, yellow palm, or bamboo palm. The stem start right from the bottom. The fronts are arched and grow up to 2-3 meters with 40-60 leaflets. For this plant, I want to create a blue and white porcelain plant pot. Now let's get started with the drawing. You can freehand draw your plant pot and the plant. I'm using the help of a tracing paper to make my plant pot a bit symmetric. You can also create the drawing for your plant pot pattern. I'll be freehand painting it. I'm just creating a little bit of guideline for myself. For the palm fronts. Now let's get started with the color mixing. I'm going to mix a few different kinds of greens. Starting with a basic sap green, a darker green, where I'm mixing some sap green with some indigo. Another mix of some sap green with a little bit of alizarin crimson. Another with some permanent yellow deep and some sap green. For the blue design on the plant pot. I'll be picking three different types of blues, cobalt blue, some indigo, and some phthalo blue. Now we can get started. I'm picking any excess graphite with my kneaded gum eraser. Now we'll start with the leaves. With my sap green and alizarin crimson mix. I'm going to create a few darker stems at the base here. With my sap green mixture, I'm going to create the front. Adding the leaves. I'm changing my mix of green while adding the leaflets. I've made this leaf as if it's slightly bent to it's side. Let's add a few more. This time I'm picking some of the permanent yellow deep and sap green mix. Also giving a little bit of color variation to some of the leaves. You can see how I'm mixing the greens I'm using. Now I'm using that really light green mix and making the stems at the bottom a bit broader. Now we can get started with the plant pot. With my triple zero brush, I'm going to pick some phthalo blue. I'm creating a line right around the neck of this plant pot. Now I've picked some indigo. For now, I'm creating these marks with indigo. Now I'm picking some phthalo blue. Now I'm going to pick some cobalt blue. With that, I'll make some leaves. I'm making sure to add a few motifs very close to the edge. Just in case if I do not want to add any more color, they will help form the shape of this plant pot. Now with my indigo, I'm going to fill the top edge of the plant pot neck here. I'm using this indigo color to give a bit deeper color at few places. Now, if you want to create any extra leaves or reinforce the central vein, you can do that at this moment. With this, my Areca palm is done. 11. Day 3 Chinese Money Plant: Hello there. Let's get started with our day 3. Today we are painting Chinese money plant, which is also known as UFO plant or pancake plant. The leaves are lovely green and circular or oval in shape. For the plant pot, I want to keep it simple, painted in gray, and put it on a stand. Now let's get started with a little drawing. You can freehand draw the plant pot and the plant. I'm using a little piece of tracing paper here. I'm not going to add the stand yet. We'll first paint the plant pot light, and then we'll add a stand. For now, let's draw the plant. Make the leaves circular or oval attached to a central stem. We'll also be painting a light dot slightly off-centered. It's up to you how many leaves you would like to add. For me, this many are enough. We'll be adding a geometric pattern here on the plant pot, but for now, I'm leaving it just like this. Let's mix some colors. Let's start with the leaves. For the leaves, I'm going to pick sap green. You can use simply plain sap green. But I'm going to add a little bit of indigo to it. For central stem, I'll pick some burnt umber. For the plant pot, I need a gray. I'll start with Alizarin crimson. You mix your three primaries, cobalt blue and then Aureolin yellow. This gives me a pretty neutral gray. If you would like to add a bit more tint to it, you can add a little bit more red or blue or Aureolin yellow. This color is fine for now. We'll also be using black or brown for the stand. I've got some lamp black. Now let's get started. It might need a gum eraser. I'm going to pick any excess graphite before I start. With my number 4 round brush, I'll first start with the leaves. The leaves are oval or circular and look like little coins. I've drawn a few leaves that are hiding behind these top leaves. I'll wait for them. Let these dry and then I'll add those leaves. In the meantime, we can paint the plant pot. In my slot, number 8 brush. I'm going to pick the gray we had mixed. I'm watering it down quite a bit. Now I'll add some more leaves. I'll add the brown center stem. With that same green color, I'm going to attach all the leaves. With my number 2 round brush, I'm going to rinse it. Pat it dry. Then slightly off-center, I'm going to touch the tip of the brush and make a circle, reactivating the color at that place. Then with a piece of kitchen paper, I'm going to lift some color. It creates a nice little highlight. Depending on the staining quality of your color and the quality of the paper, you'll be able to lift more or less color. I'm just disturbing the topmost layer. My brush is quite soft. But if you have a bit tighter brush, you'd be able to get a better and more sharp-looking mark. If you want, you can add a few more leaves. Don't forget to attach them to the central stem, giving a bit more color to the central stem. Now, let's focus on the plant pot here. I want to create a little geometric pattern here. For that, I'll mix bright orange. I'll pick some Quinacridone gold, and then I'll add some Alizarin crimson to it. With this, I'll add a few lines. I'm using a number 2 round brush. It's entirely up to you. I've decided to add a little chevron pattern here along with two lines. But you can also add any other geometric shape. I'm going to think about the stand. You can add a three-legged stand right underneath the pot, or a four-legged stand like this. Now with my round number 2, I'm painting this stand with simple lamp black. If you would like it to be wood textured, you can use burnt umber for it. Just go around and see if anywhere you need a bit more color. My Chinese money plant is almost ready. I'm just making those highlights a little bit more prominent. With this, we are done with our Chinese money plant or UFO plant. 12. Day 4 Oxalis Triangularis : Welcome to Day 4. Today we are painting oxalis triangularis. Before you say what, it's also known as purple shamrock or false shamrock. Its leaves are dry foliate. What that means is each leaf is divided into three leaflets, which are shaped like arrowhead or little triangles. You will find them in different shades of pinks, purples, but also in deeper shades like maroon. Some of the variants have the leaves in one solid color, but some of them have a little lighter center and a bit darker outside part. Something beautiful about this plant is how these leaves completely fold in at night and as the day arrives, they open up like little butterflies. For the plant pot, I want to create a look as if some clay has been carved out of the plant pot. You can freehand draw your plant pot. For now, [NOISE] I'm using a tracing paper. I'm also adding a little circular pattern. Now let's draw the plant. If you are painting your leaves in two different colors, first, paint the center with the lighter color. Then once it dries, use the darker color to paint the edges. Let's remove any excess graphite. Now let's mix the colors. For the leaves, I will mix some [NOISE] light violet color. I'm picking some quinacridone magenta. [NOISE] Try mixing your own color to see which one you like. You can directly pick something like dioxazine violet. I'm mixing some phthalo blue, [NOISE] with quinacridone magenta. Let's test the color. I like it like this. [NOISE] While the leaves will be wet, we'll be adding just a little bit of green in the center. I'm picking some sap green. We need a really light color for the stem. For that, I'm picking some aureolin yellow. To that I will add just a touch of alizarin crimson. Now, I want to create an orangeish brown color for the plant pot. Starting with some burnt umber, [NOISE] mix enough color based on how big the plant pot is. To this, I will add some aureolin yellow and some alizarin crimson. I like this color. Now we can get started. If you want to paint quite loosely, you can use the Number 4, but if you would like a bit more control, you can use a smaller brush like Number 2 or Number 0, if your leaves are small. [NOISE] Number 4 brush round. Picking some of that violet, adding it to the base of the leaflets. Rinsing my brush patting it dry. Now I'm going to pull this color out. Rinse my brush, pat it dry, pull the color out. While this leaf is still wet, [NOISE] rinse my brush pat it dry. Pick just a little bit of that green in the tip of my brush and add it just where the leaflets meet. It gives us subtle color variation. You can also paint them completely flat in one color, a purple or a violet or even pink or maroon. Rinse my brush, pat it dry, pull the color out. With this instead of a very flat looking leaf, you have a bit of variation. [NOISE] This plant also gets really pretty flowers. For now, I'm just concentrating on the leaves. We'll wait for these to dry. In the meantime, let's color the plant pot here. With my same Number 4 round brush, I'm picking that brown we have mixed quite close to terracotta's color. I'm painting leaving those circles behind. I'll wait for this to dry. In the meantime, we can add little veins to our leaves. [NOISE] If you find the leaves a little light, you can also add another layer of color. With that same mix that we had created for the leaves, I'm adding the veins. The plant pot is still quite wet so I'm being a bit careful. You can also turn your page around. Now with that orangeish blush color that we had mixed, watering it down a little bit more, I'll create the little stocks. Being just a bit careful when it reaches the plant pot. Still wet. The colors will bleed. Just adding a few darker bits to some of the leaflets, giving it a bit more color variation. My plant pot has almost dried. With that same color, going to add a little shadow at the base. I'll add just a touch more of burnt umber to it. I'll create some vertical ridges. [NOISE] Now with my Number 2 round brush, [NOISE] I'm going to pick that same mix with which we created the plant pot. I'll create a little shadow inside these circles. Now with that same color, I'm going to add a little center to each of these circles. I'll add just a bit more color around the shoulder here. Just go around and see if you need to add anywhere a little bit more detail. Connect any leftover leaf. [NOISE] Give a little bit more color to some of the stocks, attach them to the base. With this, my oxalis triangularis or purple shamrock is ready. 13. Day 5 Rubber Plant: Hello there. It's day five and let's get started. Today we're painting a rubber plant. There are quite a few varieties out there. The one one painting has got very dark leaves. For the plant pot I want to keep it simple but add a little bit of a watercolor effect. Let's get started with the drawing. You can easily hand draw your plant pot and the plant. I'm using the help of a tracing paper here. Now let's draw the plant, convex shaped leaves, a bit pointy on top. Also adding a few that you can see from this side. Also a few where you can see the backside of the leaf. Now I'm ready with my drawing. I'm lifting some excess graphite with my kneaded gum eraser. Now let's mix the colors. For the top part of the leaf we want a really dark color close to black. I'm starting with some indigo, to that I'm going to add some burnt umber. That's about right. For the underside of the leaf I'll create a similar mix. Some indigo, some burnt umber. To this, I'll add just a touch of aureolin yellow. The veins on the top part of the leaf we'll be painting them dark, so we'll use the same mix that we have created for the leaf. But for the bottom part of the leaf, the veins, we want red in color, so I'm mixing a thick mix of alizarin crimson here. For the center stalk, I'll make a mix of burnt umber and some green. I've got some burnt umber here. I want to keep the plant pot white but I'll add some waves of blue to it, so for that I'm mixing some cobalt blue with a little bit of indigo. We'll be adding these waves wet in wet. Now let us get started. I'm going to use my pencil to quickly mark the leaves which are either on its side or where the backside of the leaf is visible. Now in my Number 4 round brush, I'm going to pick the lighter green mix where we had added a little bit of aureolin yellow, and with that lighter color, I'm going to paint the leaves where the underneath part of the leaf is visible, or the leaf is visible from its side. Basically, we are painting anywhere where the underneath part of the leaf is visible. While the leaves are still wet, going to rinse my triple zero brush, pick some Alizarin crimson, and run it through the leaf. Right in the middle, if it's a full leaf, and towards the edge, if you're seeing the leaf from its side. I'll get back to it. You can add this effect only while the leaf is still wet, else it will stand out too much. I'm adding a little bit of color and then pulling it a little bit throughout the rest of the leaf, keeping the tip pointy. Again while it's still wet, pick the alizarin crimson. Not too much water in my brush. Now in my Number 2 round brush, I'll pick some of that Alizarin crimson, and with that I'll paint this top folded leaf. It's not opened up yet. Now we can get started with a darker color, so I'm in my Number 4 round brush picking the darker color we had mixed with indigo and burnt umber. Just being a bit careful where the leaves are overlapping. Now while these are still wet, in my triple zero brush, I'll pick that same mix with which we have painted the leaf and I'm going to draw a vein in the middle. You can also pick some fresh burnt umber and indigo if you want the veins to look a bit more pronounced. This is still wet, so I can't add this leaf here. It's still wet here, but I can add a little leaf here. While the leaves are drying I'm picking some of that burnt umber mix and adding the central stem, making it a little bumpy at places. I'm picking a thick mix of indigo and burnt umber to add some veins. I'll paint the leaf here underneath, this one with the lighter color. The color is bleeding too much because the leaf was a little bit too wet, so simply rinse your brush, partly dry, and run it along the leaf. It picks up excess moisture and controls the colors bleeding into each other too much. Now while these leaves are drying, let's work on the plant pot. I'm picking plain water in my flat Number 8 brush, and with that, I'm going to cover the whole plant pot just with plain water. Now I'll wait for this to dry just a little bit so that the shine of the water is gone. If I'll add color right now to it, it will bleed uncontrollably. In the meantime, you can go ahead and see if any leaf needs a little bit more color. You can tilt your head to see if the shine of the water is gone. It's still pretty wet, so I'm waiting just a little longer. Now in my Number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick that thick indigo and cobalt blue mix that we had created. I've not added any more water rather I'm going to touch my brush just on the edge of a kitchen paper to remove excess moisture and with this, I'm going to start on the edge and lead this color into rest of the plant pot, so just teasing the color a little bit. Letting water do rest of its magic. Since we had painted the plant board completely white, it's important to let a little bit of color reach the edges, to define it a little bit, and with this, my rubber plant is ready. 14. Day 6 Peace Lily: It's Day 6, and I hope you're enjoying this art challenge. Today I want to paint peace lily, which is a nice indoor air purifying plant. For the plant pot, I want to keep it simple and paint it in two colors. You can go ahead and freehand-draw the plant pot or use a tracing paper like me to make it a bit more symmetric. I will also add a few guidelines for myself for the leaves. I do make sure to add a few leaves that look like they are bent. Will also add a few flowers which have a leaf-like yellow or white structure called spade and a cylindrical structure in-between called spadix, which is the actual flower. I'm removing any excess graphite by pressing down a needing gum eraser. Now let's mix our colors. For the base of the plant pot, I want a dirty teal color. I'm starting with some phthalo blue. I'll add just a touch of sap green to it and then some indigo. A bit more phthalo blue. Let's try it. Looks fine. For the top part of the plant pot, I'll make some Alizarin crimson, keeping it quite light and watery. For the plant stalk, I'll be using simple sap green. Now for the leaves, you need a very dark neutral green. You can find quite a few formulas to mix a green like that. But one of the easiest way is to try and mix some of the yellows that you have with a black or a gray that you have in your palette. I've got aureolin yellow here, and I'll mix it with some lamp black. It instantly gives me a really dark but neutral green. I'll make some more of it. For the flowers, we need a really light yellow color. I'm just picking some permanent yellow deep and adding lots of water to it. Now we can get started with the painting. With my flat number 8 brush, I'm picking some of that Alizarin crimson and painting that top band first. I'll wait for it to dry before I add more color at the bottom. In the meantime, we can get started with the plant. I'm picking some light green mix, in my number 4 round brush, and painting some stalks. I'm not going very close to the edge where the plant pot starts because the two colors might bleed into each other. Now we can get started with the leaves. With my same number 4 round brush, I'm picking some of that really dark green mix starting at the base of the leaf, touching just the tip of my brush, pressing my brush down, giving it a bit of a wave, and lifting as I'm coming out. This makes the tip really pointy. For a leaf that's bent towards you, make the top flat and then pointy as it goes towards the bottom. I'll pick some of that lighter green mix and add a few lighter leaves and a few lighter tips to some of the leaves to make it look like they are bent. Now we can go close to the top of the plant pot, add some more green. At this point, we can add the flowers. I'm picking that really light yellow mix. I'll first paint the spade. Leaf-like structure, pointy up on top and pointy at the bottom, but a little wide in the middle. I'll wait for it to dry before I add the central cylindrical part. But we can try adding the little stalk. It will bleed a little bit into the flower, but that's the look we want. At this point, I'm picking my number 2 round brush and with that really dark green mix, I'll create a few veins. You can leave the leaves just like this. But if you would like to add a little bit more detail, you can add the veins. I'll pick some of that lighter green mix and mix it with the darker green mix. Then add this color to some of the leaves that I made look like as if they're bent to show their bottom part of the leaf. Just adding a few darker stalks, making the plant look a bit fuller at the bottom. Now, with that light green mix, I'm going to create the central spadix. With my detail brush and number 2 or zero, I'll pick some of that permanent yellow deep. My brush barely has any water but I'll still touch it a little bit to the kitchen paper to remove any excess moisture. With this, I'm going to apply this thick color directly on this spadix and create little dots. Now I'm going to pick my flat number 8 brush again. Pick some of that dirty teal. I'm adding a bit more water to it because I don't want it this dark. Now with this lighter version of the color we mixed, I'm going to paint the bottom part of the plant pot. At this point, you can go ahead and add any finishing touches that you want. You can leave the plant just like this. But I would go ahead and add a few random dots on the base of the plant pot to make it look like something was already mixed in the clay. But for that, you will have to wait for the base of the plant pot to dry completely. Now with my triple zero brush, I'm going to pick some indigo in my brush, pure indigo, not too much water in my brush, and just add little dots randomly throughout the plant pot. Few of them slightly bigger, but rest of them just a little point. I'm adding them pretty randomly to make it look like it was part of the clay. It gives a nice little texture to your plant pot. With this, our peace lily is complete. 15. Day 7 Calathea: Welcome to day 7. We are halfway through the challenge, so give yourself a pat on the back. Let's get started. Today, we are painting Calathea. They're also known as prayer plants. They are called so based on how their leaves behave with the changing sunlight. There are quite a few different varieties of this plant with different kinds of variegations or the patterns on the leaves. The one you are painting today is called Calathea orbifolia. It has large, broad leaves with stripes off grayish green and dark green. For the plant pot, I want to paint a ditsy floral pattern plant pot. Now let's get started. I'm using the help of a tracing paper to draw the plant pot, but feel free to freehand draw the plant and the plant pot. Now let's draw the plant. It has really big leaves, wavy along the edges. I'm drawing a few where you can see the bottom side of the leaf as well. It might need a gum eraser. I'll pick the excess graphite. Now let's mix the colors. For the base color of the leaves, I want a grayish green color. I'm starting with some indigo, to that I'll add some burnt umber. To this grayish mix, I'll add some aureolin yellow. With this mix, I'm going to create a watering puddle. This I will use to paint the base of the leaves. For the darker stripes, I'll pick some sap green. You can directly use sap green for that or you can mix a little bit of indigo to it. I'll use the same mix to paint the bottom part of the leaf as well. For the pattern on the plant pot, I'm going to pick some alizarin crimson and then add some permanent yellow deep. Let's see these colors quickly. This is the grayish-green. Here is the darker green with sap green and indigo in it. Here's the orangeish color. I'll also mix a little bit of olive green. For that, I'm picking some sap green. I'll add just a touch of alizarin crimson to it. For the plant pot background, we'll be using lamp black directly. Now let's get started with my number 2 round brush. I'm quickly going to pick this orange color and create five-petaled flower shapes here. You can make them really small or a bit bigger, trying to leave the white center. I'll also add some leaves. Now let's get started with our leaves here. With my round number 4 brush, I'm going to pick this watery mix of grayish green color. I'm adding it to the whole leaf shape. On this leaf, you can see both sides of the leaf. I'm painting with this base color the top of the leaf. Now I'm seeing that these leaves are almost drying. I want to wait till the shine of the water is gone, but the leaf is still a little bit wet underneath it. If the leaf will be completely dried, then the marks that I create will be quite sharp, quite well-defined. It's up to you what look you want. In my number 2 round brush. I'm picking some pure indigo or some of the green that you have mixed with indigo. Run it along the central vein, then create some sideways like this , some broader stripes. In-between them, some finer ones. Some broader stripes first. This leaf has almost dried. My marks are a bit more defined than the other leaves. If you want to save time, you can work on multiple leaves, but it does get a bit chaotic. Now let's continue with the other leaves. Making the leaves a little bit wavy. I have to work a bit fast here because there are three leaves that are drying. Some broad marks, and then finer ones in-between them. With this same color with which I'm making these marks, I'm going to add the underneath part of the leaf here. I'll pick some more sap green. With that, I'm going to attach the stalks. That same sap green and indigo mix, I'm going around reinforcing some of the marks we have made. I'll pick some of the base color and just add it on these leaves, which are underneath the other leaves, just around where the two leaves are meeting to add a slight shadow. Now we can work on the plant pot. With my same number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick plain lamp black and fill in this whole white area. Don't worry about leaving these little white specks. It adds to the look. I'll also add little black dots to the center of these flowers. Now just take one final look to the plant, anything that needs to be fixed. With this, my Calathea orbifolia is ready. 16. Day 8 Tradescantia: Hello, it's Day 8, and let's get started. Today we're going to paint Tradescantia, also known as spiderwort or day flower. It has quite a few different varieties with very attractive leaves with stripes of green, crimson, pink, or violet in there. For the plant pot, I want to keep it simple and paint it in the shape of a teacup. Let's get started with the drawing. You can freehand draw your plant pot and the plant. I'm using the help of a tracing paper here. Let's start adding the plant. I'm adding a few leaves that are falling over the edge here. For now, let's pick the excess graphite with the kneading gum eraser. Now let's mix the colors for the leaves here. I'm going to start with some Alizarin crimson. I'll add just a touch of cobalt blue to it. I'll also create another mix of some Quinacridone Magenta, add some indigo to it. Now I also need some green. For that, I'll create some sap green mixed with indigo. I also need grayish green. For that, I'll start with some indigo, add a little touch of burnt umber to it, and then just a little bit of Aureolin yellow. This is the really light green, grayish green. This is sap green plus indigo. This is Alizarin crimson plus cobalt blue. This is Quinacridone Magenta plus indigo. Now let's get started. I'll start with this Alizarin crimson plus cobalt blue mix, watering it down further a little bit. Picking this mix, I'll add it to a spot on one of the leaves and then blend it out. Adding the color just a small area, and then rinse my brush better dry and then spread that color. I'll do the same for all of the leaves. Now that we have covered all the leaves here, I'm going to pick in my Number 2 brush, the grayish green mix we had created. With that, I'm creating a few stripes within the leaves, making sure to leave the initial color visible. Now with the darker green color, I'm going to add a few stripes on top of the ones I have created. I'm still making sure that the lightest color at the base is visible, the very first wash we did. Now, with that purplish mix that we had created, I'll just add the outermost boundary to these leaves and a few little leaves with this color. I'm not adding this color too much. Just add a few places, not enclosing the whole leaf with this color. Just a little bit off the edge. With this, you can see all four layers visible. The very initial layer of Alizarin crimson and cobalt blue. Then some stripes of grayish green, some dark green and this purple color in the end. With this, I'm almost done with the plant. I'll just wait a little bit for some of the places here to dry before I add some color or some details to the cup here. For this cup, you can create any pattern. I had initially thought of adding a vertical stripe pattern to it, but since the leaves already have stripes, I think that will clash a bit with the plant here. I'm going to take my Number 4 brush, and with that, I'm going to pick that same mix, the really watery mix of grayish green color, add just a touch of cobalt blue more to it. With this, I'm going to color the plant pot. Really light color. Now I'll wait for this to dry a little bit. In the meantime, go ahead and see if you will need to add details anywhere. Add some touch ups to some of the leaves. Just adding some shadows with that same grayish green color right underneath the leaves here. Now with my Number 2 brush, I'll pick that darker mix of sap green and indigo, and I'll create little dots varying in size and place them randomly. With that same grayish green, I'll just add a darker shadow here, right underneath some of the leaves that are falling over the cup here. With this, my Tradescantia is done. 17. Day 9 Aloe Vera: Welcome to day 9. Today we are painting aloe vera plant. The plant itself is quite simple to paint. But to bring a bit more interest in our painting, I want to put the plant in an olive oil tin. So let's get started with a drawing. You can freehand draw the plant, but you would like to paint. You can look for inspiration on the Internet to find some vintage packaging. I'll add a little label here in the center and will create a little olive tweak here in the middle. Some leaves for the plant. The leaves are quite thorny or rather serrated along the edges. I'll pick some excess graphite off with my knead and gummy eraser. Now, let's think about the colors. You can look online for some color palettes for the packaging of this olive oil tin. I have some colors in mind, I want this label to be this old paper color yellowish. For that, I'll pick a little bit of burnt umber, add just a touch of permanent yellow and a little bit of alizarin crimson to give me this old paper color. For the overall body of the tin, I'll be using some alizarin crimson with a little bit of burnt umber in it. A bit more watery. We'll also need a gray for the tin color. For that, let's mix a gray. If you have pints gray, feel free to use that. I'm picking some aureolin yellow, adding some blue to it, cobalt blue, and some alizarin crimson. That's about right. We'll be painting an olive motive here. But for that, I'll directly picked some green and some brown here. For the plant leaves, let's mix some colors. We want a few types of greens. I'm picking some sap green, adding some permanent yellow deep to it. For a darker green, I'll pick some sap green, add some indigo to it. Then we'll just pick some sap green by itself just to create some variation in the leaves. I'll first start with the label in the center with my flat number 8 brush. I'm picking that really light, almost old paper color mix. I'll paint this labeled with it. While this dries, let's focus on the plant. I'm starting with the lighter green mix from the base of this biggest leaf. Now as I'm going up, I'm going to change my mix and pick the darker green. While this leaf is still wet, I'm going to create little pointy serration along the edges. I'll do the same for the other leaves. Starting light at the base, bit darker as we go up. Adding a little bit more indigo for the inner edge. Painting a few leaves a little lighter. We'll wait for these leaves to dry to add some more details. In the meantime, let's work on our tin here. With some burnt umber directly in my number 2 round brush, I'll create a little twig and a few olives. Now, one one of the green that we have mixed, a bit darker green, I'll just add some leaves. I'll pick some of that green and then I'll add just a touch of alizarin crimson to this green to make the leaves a bit darker. Now, with my flat number 8 brush, I'm going to fill the rest of the tin with this light red mix. Being just a bit careful around the label. Feel free to use your round brush if you're more comfortable with that. Now, with my number 2 round brush, I'm going to add a few more details to some of the leaves here, to market them a little bit better. At this point, you can go around and add little details around your tin. I'm just adding a little gray border at the base. Also on the top, I'll add this same color near the label here, a gray. I'm going to pick some indigo in my brush, it's number 2 brush. With that, I'll create a little darker pattern of same olive twigs. We'll also use this mixed to write here. I'm just adding a little bit more deeper color underneath the label. Now, with my triple 0 brush and that really dark color, I'll write olive oil in really small letters. Just go around and see anywhere you would like to add some extra details. Just giving it a bit darker color to the label here. Just near the edges here. With this, our aloe vera plant in an olive oil tin is complete. 18. Day 10 Gollum Jade: It's day 10. You've been creating lovely plant illustrations for 10 days. That's a lot. Today we are going to paint a succulent called Gollum jade. It's named after the famous JRR Tolkien's character Gollum. It's a plant that looks really nice with a plant board that has some eyes on it. But instead of a human face, we're going to create a plant but in the shape of an oval. Let's get started with the drawing for the plant pot, you can get inspiration on Internet but try not to copy any particular type of plant pot. Rather, take your inspiration from our images. You can freehand draw the plant pot and the plant. I'm using a tracing paper here. Your oval part will be quite eye-catching, so take your time to draw it nicely. For the plant, you can draw the central stalk, light brown or even green in color and then little finger-like leaves, which have a little crater up on top. I'm going to take the excess graphite off. [NOISE] Now, let's mix the colors. You can paint the plant pot in one color, two colors or even three colors. I'm picking three colors. I'm starting with some indigo, some Phthalo blue, [NOISE] little bit of sap green. Here is the color. I also need a really light red or light pink. I'm picking some Alizarin crimson. I also need a really light golden brown color. Since I do not have too many browns in my original colors here, I can start and create a mix, some Alizarin crimson, any of the yellow, some Aureolin. To this, I can either add a little touch of sap green [NOISE] or I can also use this mix to manipulate the burnt umber that I have. Add a bit more of Aureolin to it. That's about right. Here's the pink. These three colors are used for the oval plant pot. For the plant, I'm mixing some simple sap green. I'll also create a mix with some indigo mixed in sap green and for the base of the plant, which is slightly brown in color, we'll use this brown or even pick a bit of burnt umber. For the tip of the leaves, you will need a little bit of red but I'll show you, I'll write a VP kit from my Alizarin crimson mix here. Let's get started. First, I'm going to paint the eyes with my number 4 round brush. I'm painting the outer circle of the eyes first. We'll wait for this to dry. In the meantime, let's create the plant. With that same light brown mix, I'm creating the base of this plant and now I'll add some leaves. While these leaves are still wet, just pick a little bit of Alizarin crimson and add it on the tip of the leaf. I'll create a few with a bit darker color. The ones that have dried, you can add a little bit more of darker color places. We'll wait for these leaves to dry. In the meantime, let's work on the allyl again. In my flat Number eight brush I'm going to pick that pink. I'll water down Alizarin crimson and fill in the body of the allyl leaving behind the wings and the little feet at the bottom. While this dries, I'll add a few more darker details to the plant, picking a little bit more of indigo in my number two brush. Picking a little bit of burnt umber, adding some more details to the base making it a bit bumpy. Painting this plant quite loosely. Just see if you need to add any more leaves anywhere. Now, with my number four round brush, I'll pick some of that teal color, darker teal, and add it to the wings here. I'm adding the same color to the upper part of the plant pot. Just being a bit careful around the eyes. We're going to go back to the light brown we had mixed and create another little circle inside the bigger one that we had created. With that same mix, I'm going to create these lines. I'll wait a bit to add them up here because the blue is still wet and the color is bleeding in there. I'll wait just a little bit. In the meantime, I'm going to pick that pink again in my number two round brush, and just creating a little shadow near the veins here. I'll do the same for the eyes. With the same brush, I'll create little marks on the front of the body. I'm just gently pushing my brush down to create these vertical marks. [NOISE] With that same brush, I'll create a little pattern. You can spend as much time you want. On your allyl, add little details, patterns, make them look unique. I'll go back in and complete those lines around the eyes. With my number two round brush, I'll pick a bit of lamp black. With that, I'll paint the little feet here. I'll paint two closed eyes, a little nose in-between here. Just adding some darker bits to the top part here. It's almost complete. You can just go around and see if you need to add any more details to the leaves, define some of them a bit better. Some of them are hiding behind the others so see if you need to define them a little bit. Picking a little bit more of that burnt umber to create a few more details at the base of the plant. Now, just see if you need to add any more details to your allyl. I will pick a little bit of bleed proof white in my triple zero brush, and I'll just add a few dots to the upper part. With this, my Gollum jade plant is ready. 19. Day 11 Snake Plant: Hello there. Welcome to day 11. Today, let's paint a snake plant. We'll be painting the leaves in three colors. The first one being light yellowish green color, followed by stripes of grayish green and dark green. Instead of painting a plant pot, we'll be painting a dude cloth bag for this snake plant. Let's first draw the dude cloth bag. Adding a fold up on top, making the edges slightly uneven. Now let's draw the plant. Adding a few leaves that are curled. I'm going to pick the excess graphite with my kneading gum eraser. Now let's mix the colors. For the first layer, I'm going to make some permanent yellow deep with just a touch of sap green in it. Now let's mix the two greens with which we'll be creating stripes. First I'll mix a grayish green. For that I'm starting with indigo. Now I'll add some burnt umber to it, followed by some aureolin yellow. Here's the color. Now for the really dark green, I'll be starting with sap green. To this, I'm going to add indigo, keep this quite dark. For the top fold of the dude bag, I'll start with some burnt umber, add some quinacridone gold to it, and just a touch of alizarin crimson. For the base I want a lighter version of dirty teal color. For that, I'm starting with some phthalo blue, adding some indigo to it and then just a touch of sap green. That's fine. I'll be adding some black stripes or pattern on it, for that we'll pick directly some lampblack. For now, we can get started. In my number 4 round brush, I'm first going to pick that yellowish green mix we have created off some permanent yellow deep and some sap green and I'm going to paint the leaves. While these leaves are drying, I'm going to pick my flat number 8 brush and pick some of that dirtier teal color we have mixed and I'm creating another puddle, adding more water to it, making the color lighter. With this, I'll create the base here. Some of the leaves have started to dry. I'm going to take my number 2 brush, pick that grayish green color, adding a little bit more water to it here. Now with this, I'm going to create the inner part of the leaf, leaving some yellow towards the boundary. Let me show you the two ways in which you can add the stripes. Right now some of the leaves are wet. I'm picking that really dark green, indigo and some sap green mixture. Not much water in my brush and with that I'm creating little connected dots and placing them in stripes right over the grayish green color we have painted. Places where the grayish green is still wet, this color will bleed, giving it a fuzzy look. While if the bottom layer has dried, then you'll see more sharper look. Just add these stripes throughout the leaves, leaving the yellow outside intact. Now while these marks are drying, I'm going to take my number 4 brush and use that orange brown mix to create the top folder of this jute cloth bag. If you want to soften up the look of these stripes, take the green with indigo mix, add a little bit more water to it and simply glaze over the leaves. This creates a softer look. It's just the same mix of indigo and sap green. I've added just a little bit more water to it. I'm running my brush with this quite watery mix all over the marks we have created just to soften them up a little bit. Also going to add a bit more color to the base of this bag. Now I'm waiting for this to dry before I add any more details to it. In the meantime, with my 000 brush, I'll create little crisscross marks over the top part of this jute bag with the same color I've used to paint it. Just has dried a little bit so it looks a bit darker. Adding a bit darker color here at the base. The base is still wet. I'm using this time to add some details. Making these curled leaves just a bit better in shape. Now that the base color has dried, going to pick my number 2 round brush and give a little bit of shadow along the edges as if you can see some folds. Now that the base has almost dried, in my 000 brush, I'm going to pick some lamp black and with that create some vertical lines. Not making them straight, further adding these marks. You can decide to add any pattern you'd like or even leave it plain. Taking some of that teal color from the original mix, just adding it right underneath the top fold. With this, my snake plant is ready. 20. Day 12 Fiddle Leaf Fig: It's day 12. Let's get started. Today we are painting fiddle leaf fig. It's a lovely indoor plant that grows quite tall and has really big leaves. It's important to put a sturdy base underneath it. You can add a big plant pot underneath it or something like a jute bag. Now, let's get started with the drawing. You can freehand draw the jute bag and the plant. I'm using a tracing paper here. I'll also add handles. Now, let's paint the fiddle leaf fig. You can get started then add leaves quite close to the base. But I want to have a visible central stem. The leaves are quite tapered at the base but grow quite wide at the top. They have quite prominent veins. Do try to create a few leaves where you can see the underneath part of the leaves. The underneath part is a little lighter in color. I'm not adding the veins yet. Now, with my kneaded gum eraser, I'll lift the excess graphite. Now, we can get started. Let's first mix the color for the leaves. I want quite a neutral green. For that, a quick way to mix a neutral green is mix your yellows with a black or gray that you have in your palette. Let's test this color. It's nice. Let's mix a bit more of it. You can mix this kind of color with quite a few different formulas, but I find this the quickest way. We have quite a bit of leaves. Do mix enough color for yourself. We'll also need a lighter version of this color for the underneath part of the leaves. I'm making another mix, this time a little less lamp black. I've used Arlen yellow and lamp black for these mixes. For the central stem, I'm using burnt umber. I'll also use the same burnt umber for the jute bag as well. You can add a bit of red or yellow to it to vary it if you would like. I've got some burnt umber, another puddle here too that. I will add a little bit of quinacridone gold and a little alizarin crimson. That's nice. We'll also need pure lamp black for the jute bag. Now, let's get started. With my number 4 round brush, I'm picking that lighter mix that we created with more Arlen yellow and a little less lamp black in it. I'm further watering it down. I want to create a really light mix. To this I'll further add a little bit more of Arlen yellow to a really light green. With this, I'll first paint all the leaves. I'm giving this base coat to all of the leaves. Doesn't matter. Top surface, bottom surface. Use this color to first cover all the leaves. We'll be working in layers because we want the veins to be visible since they are quite prominent. If this method is too lengthy for you, you can also pick a lighter white to add the veins later. But do try to give this technique a try. Now, while these leaves dry, let's focus on the jute bag here. With my flat number 8 brush, I'm going to pick that orange-ish brown color and paint the top of the jute bag. We'll wait for this to dry. With some of that burnt umber, I'll add the central stem, making it a little bumpy at places. Some of the leaves have started to dry. With my pencil, I'm going to faintly draw some veins. Some of the leaves I'm leaving in a way as if we are seeing the underneath part of them. Now, for all the leaves where you are seeing the top surface, I'm going to use the darker green mix that we have. My number 2 round brush, and paint, leaving the veins that we have drawn. I'm just painting around the veins, the little guides you have made. This way, you are negatively painting the veins, you're painting all the areas around the vein, which brings out the vein in lighter color. Take your time with this, no need to rush here. Your pencil marks will come handy. They will guide you where to leave. Now you can see why I painted a base coat. I did not want the veins to look paper white. That's why adding a base coat is important. They are light in color, but they're not paper white. Right now, I'm just drawing the leaves where that top surface is visible. Now, we've got two leaves left, which I want to paint as if that's the backside of the leaf. I'm picking the lighter green mix where there was more Arlen yellow and just a little lamp black. With that, I'm going to create the same veins. Really light green. Main are visible from the back as well. But it's important to paint them a little lighter. Here, this part is underneath part of the leaf, so I'm painting it a little lighter. The remaining part is the top surface. If you would like to darken up the top surface of the leaves, go ahead and do that. Just giving a bit more color to the central stem here, adding a few darker spots. Now, let the leaves dry. In the meantime, let's focus on the jute bag here. With my number 2 round brush and the burnt umber mix, I'll create little lines like this quite close to each other. Then you can add little slanted marks like this. You don't have to be very precise with it. Just to give it a texture of woven jute. Let's not forget the handles, with that same brown, burnt umber color. Now with my flat number 8 brush, pick some pure lamp black and I'll create this band here. Now, we'll do the same, but this time with black. But this time we will not create the slanted marks. You can decide to add any pattern on the jute bag, making the central band really dark and black. Now, with my number 4 round brush, I'll pick that same black color, the lamp black. I'm going to just run it along this edge a little bit. With that same brush, I'll pick some of that burnt umber, run it along the top edge and just soften up some of these marks that we made. Adding a little bit off that orangey-brown color. Now have a quick look around and see if you would like to add any more color to any of the leaves. With this, I'm done with my fiddle-leaf fig. 21. Day 13 Begonia: Welcome to day 13. Today we are painting, begonias. It's a lovely plant, comes in quite a few different varieties. We're painting polka dot begonias today. You'll find its leaves in different kinds of green, ranging from light to really dark. They have white polka dots on them and leaves are shaped almost like a bird's wing. They are a bit wavy all around the edges, the underneath part of the leaf is rusty red in color and together with all these features, it looks quite a dramatic plant. For the plant pot, I want to create a layered mountain looks, so we'll be adding multiple glazes, one on top of the other. Let's create a quick drawing. You can freehand draw the plant part you would like. I'm using a tracing paper. Now I'm going to add the leaves. I'll create a few leaves so that you can also see the bottom part of the leaf. Now, let's mix the colors. You can create the leaves in bright green as well, but we'll be painting them really dark green so for that I'm picking some sap green. To that, I'm going to add some indigo. Let's test it. That's fine. For the underneath part of the leaf, I'm picking some Alizarin crimson. To that, I'm going to add some quinacridone gold. This gives me a nice reddish-orange. I'II also mix some plain sap green here to add to the stem part of the leaf. For the plant part, I want to create layered mountains. For that, I'm going to mix the same color in three different puddles. But I'm going to vary the amount of water in them. This puddle doesn't have much water. Here, I will add a bit more water. I'll make this last puddle quite watery. I have the same color in really light medium and a bit darker variance. I will quickly lift a little bit more of excess graphite from the drawing. Now with my number eight flat brush, I'm going to pick that really watery mix barely any color in it and with that, I'm going to paint the whole part. Now we're going to wait for this to dry. In the meantime, let's add some color to the leaves. In my round number four brush, I'm going to pick that really dark green that we mixed. With the tip of my brush, I'm creating a wavy edge and then filling the shape with the color. I'm going to wait with this leaf a little bit so that this one dries, else they will bleed into each other. Just checking the if plant pot is dried, but it hasn't so wait just a little bit. In the meantime, you can add a stem. so with that light green mix, I'll attach a little stem to the leaves. Now that the plant pot has dried a little bit, let's add the color from our second paddle. Now we'll wait for this to dry. In the meantime with my number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick that rusty red color we mixed for the bottom surface of the leaf. I'm not adding it to all the leaves, just a few which you can see from the side. I'll give a little bit more color to the stem. Instead of simple one-color flat look, adding a little bit of another color makes it nicer. Now I'll show you a technique with which you can create lighter color details on top of a dark color wash. These leaves are quite dark. I want to create light veins. You can obviously go in with a white gouache or a pen to create the veins, but I'll show you the technique called lifting the color. I'm rinsing my number 2 pointed round brush, patting it dry. With this thirsty brush tip, I'm going to create a little dot in the center. With this scratched up kitchen paper, I'm going to press it down and that lifts the color out. Again, rinse the brush, pat it to dry. I don't have much water in my brush but the tip is still wet, so it reactivates the color on the top surface. Now with an absorbent paper, I'm lifting a little bit of color off. That creates a little lighter detail in there. Now let's create more veins. You don't want too much water in your brush, else the details will become not so sharp. How nicely you are able to lift the color from a wash like this depends on two things, one is the quality of paper and the second one is the staining quality of your color. A little dot near the top. I'll show you one more time here. So you're disturbing the top-most surface of the color, making it reactivated. Then with an absorbent surface, simply picking it out. If this technique is too difficult, feel free to create darker veins with your dark green color. I just wanted to show you a nice technique to create lighter details on a darker surface. This gives quite subtle look to the veins, they don't look very sharp. Because we'll be adding polka dots later on the leaves, you do not want the veins to stand out that much. This technique comes handy in creating lighter but subtle veins. I'll add a little bit more color to this leaf here. While I'm continuing to add more veins, let's quickly add another layer here to the plant pot. This time I'll pick color from the mix which has very less water in it. I'll continue adding more veins now. Now while this layer is drying on the plant pot, let's go ahead and add the white polka dots on our plant. For that, I'm going to pick my bleed proof white. Now with this, I'll add white polka dots on the leaves, some smaller and some bigger. You can also use white gouache for it or a white gel pen. I'm painting the dots in-between the veins and not on top of them. Now, I'm going to pick that reddish orange color and add another layer to some of the leaves here, making that underneath color a little richer. Now I'm going to add just a little bit more red to the mix which had very less water, that three mixes we had created for the plant pot. I've added just a bit more alizarin crimson to it and with that, I'm going to create the final layer of mountains. Just go around and add any final details you would like to. This completes our begonia. 22. Day 14 Monstera: Hello there. It's Day 14. It's the last day of our art challenge. Let's get started. Today we are painting Monstera. It's a tropical vine or shrub that is now a very common indoor plant as well. There are quite a few varieties of it out there. But most of them are characterized by these dramatic holes that developed within the leaves, which eventually grow and open up along the edge of the leaf. You can look on Internet and find the Monstera plant you would like to paint. For the plant pot, I want to create a plant pot that has a design taking inspiration from Malian mud cloth. Before we get started with the drawing, I want to show you a trick to draw the Monstera leaves. First draw a central vein, say this is the plant pot. Now around the central vein, draw irregular heart shaped leaf. Draw some more veins. Now, start drawing the ridges that develop enclosing these secondary veins that you drew. Now we remove the outer heart-shaped boundary. Do the same on this side. You can also add the little circles where this curve of the ridges comes inside. Usually these veins are painted light. There are quite a few different ways in which you can achieve that look. You can use some masking fluid. You can paint them with gouache a bit later once you've applied all the colors. But there's another way in which you can paint these in light green and then later color around them, leaving these light green veins shining through. We'll try that technique. Now let's get started with our drawing. You can freehand draw your plant pot and the plant. I'm using a tracing paper for my plant pot. Now let's draw the leaves. The pattern on the plant pot I'm not going to create right now, we'll be creating the Malian mud cloth inspired pattern later. Let's not forget to add the little holes that developed within the leaves. Quickly erasing the boundaries of the heart shape. You can even remove the excess graphite, but since this leaf is a bit complicated, I do like to leave visible guidelines for myself. Now let's mix the colors. The leaves can be painted in quite a few different kinds of greens. I want a really light green with which I will first paint the veins. For that, I'm picking some sap green that I'm going to add some quinacridone gold. Let's test this color. It's fine. For the main leaves, you can create any green mix, a darker green mix, so you can mix your sap green or your green with indigo or if you would like to make it a bit more neutral or closer to olive green. You can add a touch of burnt umber. I try not to use sap green directly for my leaves. Sometimes I mix indigo in them or sometimes a bit of burnt umber in them. That's fine. For the plant pot, I want a really deep maroon color or reddish brown color. You can use perylene maroon if you have it, but if you don't, then pick your darkest red. I have got some Alizarin crimson here, and to that I'm going to add some burnt umber. This gives me a really dark close to a maroon color. To create the pattern on the pot we'll be using some white. So I'll be using some bleed proof white, but that's for later. Now let's get started. We'll first start with the veins of the leaf. So with my number 2 round brush and the lighter green mix, I'm going to create the veins that we have marked with the pencil. While these veins dry, let's color the plant pot. With my flat number 8 brush, I'm picking that deep red. We leave this spot to dry for now. Let's get started with the leaves. You can decide to pick a finer brush if you would like a bit more control, or Number 4 if you would like to paint them a bit loosely. Now what I'm doing is, I'm following my drawing guidelines, filling the color in, but I'm going to leave both these veins that we have created and also these holes that we have drawn. You can very easily fill the whole shape with a solid color, but if you would like to create a little bit of shading, add some color at one place, rinse your brush, let it dry slightly, and then pull that color out a little bit. I'll show you one more time. Carefully around the holes, add the darker color, rinse your brush, let it dry, and then just with the moist brush, pull that darker color out. It creates a little bit of variation, but if it's too difficult, feel free to simply fill the leaf with the solid color, it would also look very nice. Just be a bit careful around the veins. This gives a nice variation to your leaf, but if you are in a bit of a hurry, you can always paint them flat with one color. To save your time, I'm going to speed up this part a little bit, but feel free to reduce the playback speed from your viewing panel. My plant pot is almost dried here, so I don't have to worry too much. But if your plant pot is still wet, be a bit careful. Our leaves are almost complete, just go around and see if you would like to add a bit more deeper color at any place. You can also give a better shape to some of the leaves. Now with any of the greens, also create the stem. In the meantime, let's quickly add a little bit more color to a few places. This gives it a bit of texture. We'll wait for it to dry before we add any more details. I'll give a little bit more color to the stems here. While this plant pot is drying, I'll pick some of my bleed proof white for the Malian mud plot-inspired design. You can use plain white or mix a little bit of pink in it or a little bit of blush color in it. You can also use black for these designs. With my triple zero brush, I'm going to pick some of that bleed proof white, removing most of the moisture from my brush, holding the brush quite low and tight. You can seek inspiration for Malian mud plot inspired designs on Internet. Try not to copy a particular design, rather create a mixture of different kinds of motifs that you see. Just go ahead and remove any pencil lines. See anywhere you would need to add any darker color. You can take as much time you want to add more details, but for now, our Monstera plant is ready. 23. Closing words: You did it. You followed this art challenge for 14 days. That's two whole weeks. Well done. Even if you followed this art challenge for just a prompter too, well done to you as well. You can follow the rest of the art challenge at your own pace. Now lay your work on the table, appreciate it, and ask yourself, what do you enjoyed about this art challenge the most? Promise yourself to stay creative. I can't wait to see what you've created, so please make sure to upload your projects. You can also use the Discussion tab to ask any questions that you have and I'll try my best to answer them. You can also follow me here on Skillshare to get updates about my future classes. I really hope you enjoyed this class and the art challenge. Thank you so much for watching. Until next time. Stay creative.